Chippendale Cabinet Project #9: Two For One With Some More Scrolling

That is an amazing piece. Can’t wait to see how it comes out.

-- Julian

William i got a thought other than a bad joke. Do you have any gun blue? Try this if you do. Get some small cheap hinges, take a propane torch to them and burn the fake brass off. Then cool them, either wait or dunk em in water. Now at this point if you want a texture. Take a small hammer and give em the ole smithy look. If not just drop em in the gun blue. The longer you leave them the blacker they will get. They will take the apearance of old school hinges. Go look at lee valley and price some. Hope that helps. Oh dont touch them with your fingers before the gun blue. or your finish will be uneven. That might be cool looking to. ;)
Great progress and great spare!

-- Superdav "No matter where you go - there you are." http://chiselandforge.com

I can’t get over how precise you cut those delicate overlay pieces! They are so big and yet you do such a perfect job on them. You really do beautiful work. I haven’t used spiral blades much, but my partner does and tries to get me to use them more. I may do so after seeing this. :)

Great post! Sheila

-- Contributing Editor, Creative Woodworks and Crafts, Sheila Landry Designs http://www.sheilalandrydesigns.com "Knowledge is Power"

WOW William;

Your scroll work is incredible!!!!!

You have the controll of a CNC machine.

Fantastic work.

Lee

-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com

Ok, I’m going to brag on myself.
I’ve been asked more than a few times what CNC setup I use. I have to prove to some people that everything is handcut. One way I do this is “fuzzies”. That’s the little splintered areas of wood on the backside of scrolled cuttings. Too much fuzzie and a cutting looks like crap. I used to painstakingly remove all the fuzz. Now I only remove enough for it to look good. I make sure to leave tiny bits that aren’t seen right off by most people but that I can point out as further proof that pieces are cut on a scroll saw instead of a CNC router.
I have also been asked other doubting questions about my scroll work. I think the weirdest on in my opinion was when I was asked if it was cut with a water jet. I have never heard of a water jet, but can’t fathom how that would work. From my experience, water and wood don’t play so well together.
Now I want to tell a little secret. I’ve also been asked on occasion if I make mistakes. The secret is that when you making matching pieces, making a mistake is fine, as long as you go back and add that mistake consistantly on any matching pieces. If small mistakes are on matching pieces, noone notices. If a small mistake is on one of matching pieces, it tends to stick out like a sore thumb.
Then there are things that just come with experience and patience. Take for example the overlay pieces on each side of where the doors go. I like cutting things like that sometimes because of the challenge. Something I learned the hard way though. Turn the saw off before you do something like cough or sneeze. If you don’t, you’ll be starting over.

-- http://wddsrfinewoodworks.blogspot.com/

I never get over the patience you scrollers have. It’s really wonderful.

-- My dad and I built a 65 chev pick up.I killed trannys in that thing for some reason-Hog

Sheila, I have seen a lot of your work and really don’t see a need for you to use spirals. It is a good skill to learn on the scroll saw. For reasons unknown to me, when I started scrolling, I practiced with flat blades and spirals. Now I use spirals almost exclusively. I do so because I cut a lot of things that are bigger than what can be cut on my saw with flat blades. If you never cut things larger than the throat depth of your saw, then you get a cleaner cut with flat blades.
The reason though that I stick with spirals even on small stuff now is consistancy. I found that if I switch between flat blades and spirals too much, since they cut differently, I find myself cutting badly with both of them. Sticking with one kind of blade keeps me cutting with consistant accuracy.

-- http://wddsrfinewoodworks.blogspot.com/