An important prerequisite in scroll saw portrait making is the quality of the original. The sharpness and good lighting makes it easy for the computer to make the conversion. In past I received poorly lighted and unfocused picture, thinking that I can improve it with image manipulation, only to get the “does not look like” comment from the customer. Lesson learned. We became more strict with picture quality before accepting any the order.

I have not been doing portraits for sometime since the shop that serves as my outlet closed down. I am trying it out again since it feels like new territory at this point. I started of with a photo. With the use of Gimp, I converted the photo into a black and white photocopy image. I farther increased the contrast and erased unnecessary elements using Inkscape. Next I traced the image on to the board using carbon paper then cutting. The back board is 1/4 in plywood covered with book cover material.

The past several weeks we have been having a problem with stray cats. They tear the trash bags open and mess up the place. They make poop all over the place and create a lot of noise when they make love. So I made this trap which I copied from one in the internet with some modifications. Dimensions are 1 ft. by 1 ft. by 2 ft.

It consists of a box with a trapdoor that is held open with a pin. The pin is attached to the bait that dangles inside the box with a nylon line. When the cat tags on the bait the pin is dislodged causing … BOOM … the door to drop.

I intend to bring the box, if and when I catch one, to a far away place then release it in a new environment. He just might love the change of environment.

Unfortunately to this date still no cat. No mess or noise either. It probably sensed that the oldman was up to something no good.

I remember when I was a kid we raised some chickens. Problem is a monitor lizard attacks them. The casualty was not minor. My Dad decided to make a similar trap which worked quite well.

I got the idea from one of my woodworking books. It’s easy to make using wood scraps. I incorporated slight deviations from the original plan. Wood toys is one of my interests and hope to do well at it.

For quite sometime, I’ve been intrigued by miter cuts other than 90 degrees. The question that lingered in my mind was how to determine the miter angle. One website gave a formula which goes like: divide 360 degrees by the number of sides you plan to make. Then divide that angle by two. For six sides: 360/6/2=30. So the miter must measure 30 degrees. I tried it out using a miter saw and it turned out to be quite simple. For a newbie like me that was quite a discovery.

It was not smooth sailing. The new design carried with it new problems. This box measures 8×6 x 3 in. The cover and bottom are stained. At first I thought that I would assemble the box then do the staining and finishing later. It turned out that the box should have been assembled temporarily for fit then disassembled. The four separate parts mainly the cover, the pattern, the sides and the bottom were finished separately. In the assembly stage, I took extra care not to mar the finish. There might have been an easier way, the thing is that I could not think of any other way. Anyway, the exercise provided a whole lot of insights and lessons.

When my wife reaches for things in high places she uses a chair or and ordinary stool. I thought that that is disaster ready to happen since we are not that young anymore. So, I built her this step stool. It’s 16.5 in. high, 16 in, wide, 9.5 in. deep when step is folded in, and 18 in. with step is down. Material is 3/4 in. plyboard and the step is hinged to the main body. It is fairly stable and easy to move around.

Not too long ago, I got a low cost entry level lathe. It’s a simple machine just right for a beginner and yet with some easy to make attachments it expands its capability. I have here a thickness and disk sanders.

For the thickness sander I used a 14×3.25 inch pvc pipe attached to faceplate and an adjustable platform that sets up and comes off very easily. Maximum sanding width is 12 in. while the maximum wood thickness is 2.5 inches.

The 12×3/4 in. plywood disk is screwed to the faceplate. Similarly the platform comes on and off very easily.

I thought of mounting the belt sander on a fix base when smoothening off shapes, miter cuts, and squaring off small pieces. For this particular brand and model of belt sander it’s simple since the sanding surface is perfectly 90 degrees in relation to the table top when positioned on its side. In the first photo, the round hole insures that ventilation is unhampered. The sander is held steady in place by two screws and wing nuts (pic 3). A separate board is clamped next to the sanding surface. For the moment I use movable guides clamped on the board. The rounded end of the belt (shown in pic 5) is just perfect of sanding curves. With the appropriate jigs and tool holders it can also serve as a sharpener.

I’ve been practicing with box joints and spline joints. Things are getting better. The time I spent in making the necessary jigs is paying off. These are all from scrap wood. The first box measures 9×7 x 3.5 in. The second one is 8×6 x 2.5 in.

When I first saw the router pantograph in one website, I thought it would be interesting to make with inexpensive materials. As you can see in the photos, the only expensive part is the router. As in my other projects, I used shelving hardware, 3/4 plyboard strips and some screws. The shorter shelving hardware is 19.5 in. and the longer one is 39 in. The plyboard strip is 18 in. long and the distance between holes is 16 in. The router tray is also 18 in. long with holes 16 in. apart. No new holes were drilled in the shelving hardware since the original holes are spaced just right. The fonts were printed out from a computer. I selected the trial fonts that do not have too sharp angles. Sharp angles and bends do not reproduce well. The trial reduction setting is 50%. The router tray rests flat on the workpiece. I intend to make improvements as I gain more experience in using it. The height of each pivot point as well as the stylus is leveled with the router tray when set flat on the work piece.

This flower box was produced with my shop made pin router.

http://lumberjocks.com/projects/49591

The process is quite simple starting with the making of the template followed by the routing of the shape and finishing. I applied the same multiple layer system I used in my heart box and oval box projects. When I was planning out the project, I found the following link very useful.

http://www.leevalley.com/en/shopping/TechInfo.aspx?p=42159

I really aim to master box jointing using the simple shop made jig. Here is a sample of one of my more serious exercises. Looks a lot better than the ones I’ve done in the past. This box measures 6×5 x 3.75 in. finished with clear gloss lacquer. I don’t know what the hinge system is called. It consists of dowels driven into the sides of the box lid.

When grandma doll was created, the creator thought it to be only appropriate to have a grandpa doll. When Dr. Frankenstein created the man monster, he (the man monster) demanded that he wanted a woman. Dr. Frankenstein tried to make one but he failed. The monster went berserk and killed Dr. Frankenstein’s girlfriend. Grandma doll in this case was very pleased because Grandpa doll looks like her. And they will live happily ever after, according to her.

Eager to test my shop made pin router jig. The heart box consists of 5 layers of 1/2 in. board. The middle parts of the three inner layers only were routed open. The bottom and the three inner layers were glued together. The cover was left free. After a little sanding … voila! ... the heart box.

When I made the oval box (a few projects ago) I cut five ovals from a ½ in. thick board with a scroll saw and glued four of them, the bottom included, one above the other. The fifth one became the cover. It was a tricky business since it was difficult to follow the line. Of course, sanding saved the day. The output of a pin router requires less sanding. Later in another site, I saw how a simple mirror frame was made with a pin router jig. The contraption used is quite expensive nonetheless I thought I must have this device.

More searches yielded information that led to this project. I have a simple router table that I use for box joints. Just by constructing another contraption, it becomes a pin router. The pin is a drill bit the size of the router bit. The template in this experiment is a white bottle cover attached to board with double-sided foam tape.

So, don’t you worry, if you dream of a pin router, you can make one. It’s really quite simple. Dimensions may vary according to your requirements and the router table you have. Important thing is that the pin is adjustable up and down and sideways and must be rock steady when locked.

In woodworking what fascinates me a lot are flawless joints. The finger joint stands out in that it is durable, neat and surprisingly easy to make. This prompted me to try it out. First I made a simple router table, then a box joint jig. Both unimpressive in appearance and low budget but functional. After some fine tuning and experimentation, the process of making the joint came fairly easy and the result was surprisingly good.

The limited workshop space I have prompted me to build this table. Materials used are 2 layers of 3/4 in. plyboard surfaced with vinyl tiles, and scrap wood for legs held together by old 3/4 in. pipes. Mobility and stability is made possible with locking swivel casters. Overall dimensions are 2 x 4 x 2.5 ft.

My first post of a photo statue was a single layer one (see my projects). This one is a double layer type. The female image (my wife) is the front layer and and the guy (that’s me) is the rear layer. The photo statue technique offers a wide range of variations.

The idea is not original. Sometime back I was exploring sites that explain how to make pop-up greeting cards. In the process I came across simulated 3D cards by cutting out portions of a duplicate photo and pasting them (slightly raised) over the original photo. The effect is eye catching and very striking. As I explored more, I came across the photo statue technique others have been doing for sometime now with the coping saw or scroll saw. The possibilities are far reaching like adding a background or foreground as separate layers like a diorama and using a fancy base board, etc. Let the imagination take charge.