Signals From The Bunker

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Gill, nice. :D I like the snowflake - three sided? How'd you do that then?

Frank, treadle power! My favourite thing. Looks in lovely nick too. =P~

Cheers, Alf
 
Nice ornaments Gill.
Ornaments are one of my favorites to make on the scroll saw. Everybody always wants some of them for their Christmas tree.

Bob
 
The snowflake? I just stack cut three and then chamfered the edges of each connecting 'arm' on the sanding station until there was a good fit. It was all done by eye.

Gill
 
Gill,
I like your crimbo dec's, 8) 8)
spose i'd better get on with some, it will be here before i'm ready,
although i personally don't "do" christmas, - not at all religious,- i like to make them and give them away! :D

Alf,
it's magic!, came from "e-bay just as you see it ,
it needs a new belt , £6.00 ish from "Hobbies"
then it needs working!!!!!!!!!
 
Hi Gill
Nice decorations - better ones for me to start on WHEN i get time...
Stewart
 
At least it doesn't have flashing lights 8) :) !

ChristmasSign.jpg
 
Very Po-osh Gill, do I see a theme/trend here? Easter, Whitsuntide, Summer solstice, Halloween, Midwinter, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter!

A Sign for all Seasons, that should break the monotony for the posty.
 
French cleats, Alf :wink: - very quick to change.

Indeed, there is a theme, Chas. I've got a standard 'respectable' sign which I can swap with more appropriate signs as the season dictates. The next one could be Valentine's Day, but it's more likely to be Easter.

Gill
 
I've never made a scrollsawn/bandsawn box before, so I had a go using an offcut, freehand:

ScrolledBox1a.jpg

The components were cut. I should have used a less coarsely set blade on the bandsaw, but never mind. I used a fretsaw to cut the drawers.

ScrolledBox2a.jpg

The frame was glued back together. The legs were then detailed with a fretsaw.

Rounding.jpg

Edges were rounded over and the inner corners were finished off with a knife.

I then routed out the drawers. With hindsight, I'd have achieved a better finish if I had removed the rear and front of each drawer, then cut out the waste and re-assembled them. I'll remember that next time.

ScrolledBox3.jpg
ScrolledBox1.jpg

The finished box, with several coats of Danish oil.

Gill
 
I'm pleased you like it :) .

Andy - It's such a small box (no taller than 20cm) that the drawers don't need furniture. A light tap on the back or a slight forward tilt and they slide out quite merrily.

Gill
 
Gill,

Looks very good, I must look for a tuit to try that out, but I have just bought the SIP scroll saw so the scroll saw challenge is next on the list.
 
His Lordship bought you that much jewelry :wink: lucky girl.

Perhaps you can do a combined effort next time starting or finishing with a 'round'.

Well done for tackling something different.
 
The following post is really more of a diary event than a contribution to the fund of woodworking knowledge. In some ways, it's also a gloat. But I've had a very happy day which has a woodworking theme running through it, so I thought I'd share it...



My partner drove me over to a wonderful little workshop just outside Rugby today so that we could collect the Diamond AF-24VS that I had won on Ebay from Matthew, a designer and manufacturer of doll's houses and other children's toys. Matthew was a delightful gentleman; it's the nearest I've come to meeting a real-life Santa Claus. His wife had just reached retirement age so he'd decided to follow her example and also retire. As a result, his workshop was rather depleted but he still showed me some toy castles and doll's houses that were awaiting collection.

We spent quite a while discussing his production processes and how he marketed his wares. On the face of it, making children's toys is quite an idyllic occupation, but it isn't without its pressures. Matthew told me that he spent a lot of time travelling because most of his customers were in the London area – and there's only so much of the M40 and M25 motorways that a sane man can take! Also, he had to cope with personalised orders which had to be completed in time for a child's birthday. That wasn't normally a problem unless something such as contamination of a paint finish happened, but things could get quite out of hand as Christmas approached. Once, he'd even found himself delivering a doll's house which still had wet paint to a customer at 3 am on Christmas morning! Still, he always enjoyed his Christmas dinner all the more for thinking about the delighted children who'd be playing with his toys. Now that's job satisfaction!

Matthew's Diamond saw was approximately 5 years old and had been purchased to cut some figurines for a special order. He said he'd only used it a handful of times, and I could well believe him because it was in an excellent state of repair. He had a couple of spare drive belts, a variety of blades, and a fence, all of which he gave me because he would have no further use for them. I told him he was giving me probably the best value for £100 I'd ever had, but he was happy just to see the saw go and tick another box on his retirement checklist.

From Rugby, we drove to Hinckley and Doug Woodward had a look at my other Diamond AF-24VS which needed a new variable speed controller. He repaired it on the spot and only charged for the parts, not his labour; now is that good service or what?! Then he turned his attention to a slight knocking sound he'd noticed when testing the machine and found that the lower arm was lightly tapping against the motor. I wasn't even aware of this fault, but Doug detected it immediately and set to work adjusting the saw so that the tapping was eliminated. Again, there was no charge for his work! This is the sort of customer service that just doesn't seem to happen anywhere else.

Afterwards, we discussed the possibility of producing a tension release mechanism for the Diamond. I had my Hegner 2 in the car so I showed Doug how Hegner had tackled the problem. Interestingly, he had already produced a similar prototype mechanism on a Diamond upper arm. However, he wasn't happy with the design because it would mean replacing the whole arm and that would be expensive for current Diamond owners. He's trying to develop a mechanism that can be simply bolted in place and which will still allow users to rotate the saw blade when required. The only problem is that this R&D is a distraction from his production of new saws, so it may be quite a while before we see a tension release mechanism become available.

Moving slightly off topic, Doug showed me a Hobbies hand-held fretsaw his uncle had bought in 1917 and which had a cam operated tension release. This sort of device has been around for years! But what a marvelous experience it was to hold that saw. It had a pistol grip handle which was set just slightly forward of the blade and the weight of the cam release countered the weight of the saw frame. It was perfectly balanced and made from a steel that had retained its condition over the years. I could imagine myself turning to such a saw every now and again simply for the sake of nostalgia, even though I've got a selection of electric saws which are much more efficient.

I'd like to thank Doug for welcoming us once again to his workshop and taking such extraordinarily good care of us and the saw.

Gill
 

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