The Martians are attacking at Scrollsaw Goodies!

10/31/2008

The Martians are attacking! They are over at Scrollsaw Goodies attacking on this Halloween.  I sure hope he is able to stop this!!!!
You need to check this out!
Don't be afraid!!!
Let's hope this mayhem can be stopped!!!

Happy Halloween to all who stop by here.
Make it safe!

How do I get people to follow me on this blog?

10/28/2008

I can answer that!
Shamelessly ask! So there I did it! I am asking! Begging! Pleading!
How's about I will follow you if you will follow me?
When I installed the followers gadget this morning it was and is so sad looking, all alone, no names or faces on it. Won't you brighten up my day and do a bit of following?
Allison

Goodness sakes , get my name straight Allison

10/27/2008

I know that I said when I started this site I would not bring up anything too personal. It looks like I am going to make myself a bit of a liar. I would much rather say I am perhaps more guilty of a half truth on my part.
I have started Twitter under the name wood-alley when I found out they were doing an "Arts" section where you can meet people and follow them through the arts. I truly do not know a whole lot about this "Twitter" but always found it on the fascinating side and decided to join up mainly when I read some fellow Lumberjocks were doing the same. So I did , then I found the Arts thing, then I started getting into it but was getting no response! Then it's on the pity potty for me, until just now! When a gal named Michelle took the time to tell me she tried to follow my link to this site and it did not work. Lo and behold, perhaps a little too much vibration from all the band-saws and scroll saws, or perhaps (and most likely) just a major screw up on my part as I forgot to put the - in woodalley .Michelles site is the link to a gal I do not know but whom took the time to tell me that , well, all my saws have vibrated my brains out!
Or perhaps the truth,
That I forgot to put the - in wood-alley.
Thanks Michelle
Allison

Intarsia Horses

10/24/2008

I found the pattern to these horses in a stained glass pattern book of which I know longer have so I cannot give credit. If anyone out there knows who did this pattern I would really like to know so that I can give credit. Stain glass patterns are a nice alternative to regular wood patterns and usually quite easier.

These are made out of nothing but hardwoods. There is Oak, Walnut, Black Walnut, Maple, Red Maple, and a couple of pieces of mystery wood. I love this pattern. I like the simplicity of it and think it lets the wood do the speaking.

Since it is not made from one piece of wood it can't be considered segmentation so I would say it is a simplified form of intarsia.

Happy Birthday to Scrollsaw Goodies

10/23/2008

With nothing than the utmost respect I am so happy to announce that  Travis of  Scrollsaw Goodies has just had his 1 year anniversary/birthday of his blog. If you are a first timer here on my site than it won't take long to scroll down my page here to know how much I love his blog. If you have been here before than you already know what I am talking about. I urge you to check out his site. As usual I can not say enough good about it. And as I have said before he has been instrumental in a lot of my projects, ideas, and learning experience I myself have gone through in his first year of  his blog  Scrollsaw Goodies . If you are a scroller, or if you like intarsia as much as I this is the place to go. And please do so, and I say that only with the intention of sharing a site I have always been so thankful that I found.

And to Travis if you happen to read this I wish you a Happy Anniversary/Birthday  of your first year.I hope you keep doing it, I am sorry I am late on this congratulations, I have been gone a few days.

And to anyone whom may read this check out this link of his first year!

One year anniversary

Spray Adhesive Tutorial

10/13/2008

Awhile back I received a wonderful response to a post of mine entitled Indian Chief Intarsia Tutorial both from readers here and from readers at Lumberjocks where I had also posted it. The funny thing was that most of the response came from my way of using spray adhesive. So with that said I thought I would rewrite about it minus a project and perhaps and hopefully clearer and more in depth.

This is spray adhesive. I am not hocking any company here. Matter of fact this is the only kind I can buy in the town I live in. I get it at True Value which we just so happen to have in this town (and I am so thankful for) and I do love the product
When first starting out scrolling and doing Intarsia I learned from magazines how to do things. Mainly from the magazine called Creative Woodworks & Crafts and another called Woodworking for women. It was these two magazines that pretty much got me started in my woodworking journey. I consider them my favorite mags out there by far for what I like to do.
Whenever I would come across instructions on how to place a pattern on wood for scrolling or intarsia, there were mainly two ways. One is to use transfer paper and/or carbon paper where you can take your paper pattern and simply copy by drawing the pattern onto the wood. This is a wonderful way of doing it, but it has its limitations.This could be another post in itself, but for right now, I will say there are times when you would not want to draw right onto your wood, or you could not do so due to the type of wood, the darkness etc. However for simple segmentation projects, (where the whole project is done from one piece of wood as in this)  My Feel Good Project  it is a great way of transferring your pattern.
But this is not what this post is about.

The instructions just about anywhere that I have ran into always call for you to spray your paper pattern on the back with spray adhesive wait a few seconds until tacky and then place this directly on your chosen piece of wood. From there it states to then cover that now placed pattern with packaging tape.
The reason for using packaging tape is , to me one of the most critical things you need to use while in the shop for fret work or intarsia, etc. when it comes to using a scroll saw and/or band saw. The reason why is the packaging tape when used cools down your blade. When your blade is going through your wood either up and down as in a scroll saw or continuously as in a band saw it gets hot due to the friction and for some reason if the tape is used it keeps your blades cooler. A cooler blade does not warp and/or stretch out as quickly but MOST IMPORTANT it does not burn your wood. Those hot blades can really wreac some havoc on wood especially your hardwoods. And when you are doing fret work it is almost impossible to fix or sand away a burned spot in your project.

 

 

I use one of these tape rollers when I apply my tape. It is just easier for me this way. What ever is comfortable for you is always the best way I feel. As long as safety has not been jeopardized.

Now again this is my personal preferance (the way I transfer my pattern to my wood) and may not be the way you personally like doing this.
But this is how it goes. Instead of placing your paper pattern with the spray adhesive directly onto the wood as stated above. I do it backwards!  I place my tape directly onto my piece of wood I have chosen to use. I then spray my paper pattern with my spray adhesive and again let it get tacky, and place the paper pattern onto my now taped wood.
This is why.
When it comes time to removing your pattern from your now cut out project, you now have "glued paper" to remove. This tends to become a very "sticky" situation.  LOL!!! Great humor huh? Anyway if it is a fretwork piece you have a lot of  little cut out pieces that perhaps don't need a lot of tugging on them as they are easily breakable. One way of removing this, if doing it this way is with mineral spirits. I will also say for the most part mineral spirits does do the trick. Again however this is time consuming, smelly, messy, etc.

But if you do it my way, all you need to do is tear off the piece of tape. With it comes your pattern as shown below

 

 I ripped off some of the paper here so that you could see how it comes off with the tape.

  

 Without a doubt this is not a sure fire way of doing this every single time.Sometimes extreme fretwork does not need tape being pulled off of it either. Common sense and the type of wood etc, will give you a better understanding on what option you should use.

I am sharing this tip again because of the response from the first time, but more so to give you another option to try when it comes to placing paper templates on your projects. I do it this way more than I would say 98% of the time. It is only a suggestion that I urge you to at least give a try. It opened up a lot for me. I seemed to always run into problems when it came to removing  the template. Some of this I am sure came from my inexperiance at the time. But since then and with a little more experiance under my belt, this is one tip I will continue to use. For me it is just plain simpler, neater, and less of a hassle for myself all the way around.

I would love to get any and all comments on this post, and I would also love to know if you try it how do you feel about it.

Until then 

Safe Scrolling!

Scrolled Great White Shark Tooth

10/08/2008

This pattern was found in the January 2007 issue of Creative Wood works and Crafts. I scrolled it on a 1/4 piece of oak and put it on a piece of plexi glass from a sheet I have. For the coloring I simply placed a sheet of blue construction paper to the back and glued it with white glue and hung it up in my window.

Scrolled cork flooring

10/02/2008

Travis of Scrollsaw Goodies wrote an article that brought up cork as a different material to try when scrolling in an article he posted September 30th 2008 entitled Real Fez. It just so happens that the other day I was able to get my hands on some cork flooring from a friend of mine whom is a carpet layer/floor installer. He had some left over pieces of a cork floor and asked me if I wish to try it in my scrolling work. Of course I wanted to and I did.

This is a side view of what this flooring looks like. I can not say anything more such as what that greenish material in the middle is, and I will find out what it is called the next time I speak to my friend.

 

So I picked out a relatively easy project to cut, I also double stacked it with a piece of Batic Birch plywood  I had, as I had no idea what the back may look like when I was done with cutting it out. I assumed that being cork and all, the piece would just fall apart in the back. The back has another small thin piece of cork though a complete variation from the front/top of this piece.

 

I do not consider it done , as I made the perimeter the size of another macrame ring I have , like I used in my Indian Chief Intarsia Tutorial, which I  wrapped in macrame jute. I have plans on placing these projects to fit inside this ring and make them into a wind chime of sorts or wall hangings with beads and feathers.

I would like to add that this did not tear up my blades as I thought it might. I also did not need to double stack cut this for fear of tear-out, (as I checked later and there was no problem with that) I used Olson's

# 2, # 5 and # 7 reverse tooth blades on this project. They all worked well. I also plan on using more of this material as I find it fascinating, and can think of a lot of intarsia pieces this would be good for such as mountains, or rocks, etc. 

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