Scroll Saw Time

     I have lost my glasses.    I mean I have lost my real glasses.    I have several pairs of readers laying here and there.    Even in the shop I have several pairs of safety glasses that have different bifocal ranges in them.   But sometime in the last week, I have misplaced my prescription glasses.   (Like that is a first.)   Generally they show up after a day or two, but this time it appears that they may be in a very secluded spot.    I wish the kids were home, cause that was always a stress reliever to holler at the kids for losing my stuff.   (I wonder if that cat pushed my glass case under something.)    For those of you that are worried about my situation, it's okay.    I continue to wear my various readers or my prescription glasses from 2005.   They are a little weak and a little crooked on my head, but hey a guy has gotta do what a guy can do.

   This week I turned to a machine I have not used much since I retired.    The old scroll saw.    I have used it for various cuts that involved the cutting of small turns, but I have not done much in the way of scroll saw projects.    I plan to use some cut outs on a project that I am working on for next week and since it has been on the warm side, it was a relief to work in the basement shop for a change.   I had a lot of left over 1/4 inch scraps from when I was working on the box joint project so those scraps made it handy for practice.    All I needed to do was down load a few scroll saw patterns off the internet.   I cut out what I wanted to use and then applied a little adhesive on to the wood scrap and then pasted the pattern to that scrap.

I took that scrap with the pattern on it to my handy dandy little scroll saw and proceeded to cut it out.    I had talked to one of the fellows at our wood club, that I'm a member of, who does a lot of this type of wood work.    He makes several Christmas ornaments and small toy things.    He was telling me that in his life time, he has made more than 2,000 Christmas tree ornaments.  (I'm not thinking about getting that serious with my scroll saw projects.)    What I wanted to know was how to get the paper pattern off the final cutout.   It is one of those things that while you are cutting, you don't want the paper to move so you hope the glue holds.   When your done, you want to be able to just peel it off.   I even used some glue called school gel, but even that worked where it was still difficult to get that paper back off the wood.

       My woodworker buddy told me that when he is done cutting, he puts his ornaments in the microwave for 30 seconds and that softens up the glue.    (I tried that.  Not only is the glue soft, but the wood is so hot one can not hardly hold on to it.)     I came up with a better idea.   I just took my little wood scroll saw project and laid it paper side down on the belt sander.     The first one I did, it took the paper right off in a matter of seconds.    The second one I did, as I was applying pressure to the wood, the piece of wood slipped out of my fingers and shot across the shop.   First I was concerned that I may have broken or lost  my little piece.    Then, I noticed blood dripping on the shop floor.     Those belt sanders can do two things:   peel paper off wood fast and peel the skin off your ring finger fast.    Nothing serious, but it was my first injury in the shop since retiring.    A little band aid from my first aid kit and I was up and running again.   Nothing can get this veteran down.  (Any body seen my glasses?   I mean my real glasses?   Hmmm.)

    To the right are samples of what I plan to use for my next project.   The top four anyway.    (It's a secret - can't say what for right now.)  Talk to you next week.