Remember,
Amateurs built the Ark.
Professionals built the Titanic!
Photobucket Over at Lumberjocks when you post one of your projects you receive feed back from other Lumberjocks. For me this was a vital part of my woodworking journey. Not only do you start to feel as if you know these people, you end up really looking forward to what they have to say about your projects whether you receive constructive criticism or you get compliments, which for me has been a great ego booster and allowed me to be able to feel alright about posting my woodwork and making this blog about it. Martin the creator of Lumberjocks has added a way to place links of your posts on your personal blog. So I am now going to place the link to the items that I have posted here AND at Lumberjocks so that if you wish to click on it, you will see what other Lumberjocks have said about my particular project. If you are a woodworker and have not joined Lumberjocks yet, this may just be the push you need when you read the wonderful comments from this great group of people! And if you do join, please tell them Allison sent ya!

#4 Grasshopper and Alligator tutorial.

11/06/2008

This is the puzzle all cut out and put back together
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Notice I did not even really try to cut my "G" and "H" perfect. You can see where there is some to be removed also between the "O" and "P". I would have rather cut this out better but I did not, nor did I notice it till now.
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In comes "The Cheater" My term of endearment to one of my very favorite tools I own. My very old Delta 
1x 42 inch belt sander (with a 8 inch) disc sander on the side.
This also needs to be level and also squared.
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 I am not sanding off anything that will keep this puzzle from fitting from one piece to the other, however I do want his back and feet to be squared.
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Now he is back together and he is all cleaned up!
By the way all his pieces fit the way they were suppose to and I did not even use a spiral blade. So I learned something my self here.
I also want to point out I used a #7 reverse tooth and also a #9 reverse tooth blades.
To be exact the #s on their packages of blades are
#7 - .047 - .018 - 10(8rev)
#9 - .049 - .018 - 9(6rev) These are Olsen Blades that I get from the same place I got these patterns at
Now for the pattern removal. I did it the way I have said on LJ's before. I place the packaging tape on the wood first. Then I use spray adhesive on the pattern, wait 5 or 10 seconds for the spray adhesive to become tacky and then I place the pattern onto the packaging tape that is placed on the wood.
Poplar burns real easy and because of its light color I have always had trouble trying to "get the burn out" . I could not capture the picture I wanted to show you all, but I had actually burnt the paper on one of these pieces just with the scroll saw blade. Sooo if I had not had the packaging tape on it first that piece of wood would have been burnt instead of the paper that is on the tape. That would have been real bad considering there isn't a lot I could have done to fix a formed puzzle piece.
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This is the best I could get on this, but I hope it sort of gives you an idea on how the tape just balls up and rolls the paper pattern off with it, by taking a heat gun and waving it over your project. Again don't get to close, you sure don't want to burn your now finished project.
Another thing I would like to share is you can use a blow dryer that a person uses on their hair if you do not have a heat gun. It really does work, but obviously not as fast and perhaps not quite as thorough.
I will say though this DID NOT work as well as usual. I am sure it is because of all the twisty cuts of the puzzle itself. I still would not change the way I did it unless perhaps transfer the pattern with a piece of carbon paper and then simply place the packaging tape. That may very well be the best way to do it as this did not come off anywhere near as easy as usual!
And again, the reason for the packing tape is to keep the blade cool. When the blade is kept cool it does not get all out of shape as quickly (especially on these puzzle pieces) and a cool blade has a much longer life.

Since you are here, why not check out my older posts by simply clicking "Older Posts" above, and on the right side bar is my curiosity poll, which only requires one click. I really am interested in finding out what the male/female ratio of visitors are on a woodworking site!
Thanks and Peace
Allison, A.K.A. Wood Alley

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