Our sincere thanks to all of you who entered our Lie-Nielsen hand tool giveaway that just ended. More than 500,000 entries were submitted through Dec. 31, 2010.
Congratulations to Chris Benner of Lebanon, Ohio, the lucky winner of the five Lie-Nielsen hand planes and set of 5 Lie-Nielsen bevel-edge chisels. Chris is the proprietor of Benner’s Woodworking, a business that he started with his brother in their parents’ basement back in 1991, handcrafting 18th and 19th century furniture reproductions. The business has grown a lot since then, yet he still employs many of the traditional woodworking methods that were in use 200 years ago.
Chris’ response when he received notice that he’d won was an excited “Wahoo!” He says his new Lie-Nielsen planes and chisels will get daily use in his workshop.
Highland Woodworking’s next online giveaway features the all new Festool Rotex sander as well as a Festool CT26E dust extractor system – details will be posted on our website and on this blog at the beginning of February – make sure to check back!
Once you know your way around the basics of using a scroll saw, you can get some great inspiration from a large selection of scroll saw pattern books, many of which are available at Highland. The book that Ben recommends most highly for beginners in the video below is The Scroll Saw Workbook, which builds your skills chapter by chapter. I think for the craft of scroll sawing, the best way to learn is by doing it. If you can make shapes that interest you, that will inspire you to return to the workshop again and again to keep improving your skills.
And without further ado, the final video of this 5 day series on Scrollsaws, with Ben Arthur. We hope you’ve enjoyed watching!
This is a five day series of videos. To start at Day 1, click here. To see the previous post, click here.
One process I wanted to have nailed down in my scrollsawing toolbox was how to replace the blade. The Rikon 16″ Scroll Saw available at Highland is currently sold as a combination pack with an assortment of 86 blades. The first thing I had to learn was the difference between pin-style blades and pinless blades. I asked Ed Scent of Highland Woodworking to help provide an answer:
“Vintage scroll saws often used a pin style blade, with a “T” shaped end as a standard mount. But when you are doing more intricate work, you will probably need to thread your blade through small spaces in your work. The pinless blades allow for this threading, as they do not have the “T” shaped mount on the end that would prevent the blade fitting through. If you are doing a pattern with lots of small captured cuts (any shaped cutout in the middle of your board that requires a small access hole to start the cut) you will want to use a pinless blade for this cut. Pinless blades can also be made much smaller to do finer work than a pinned blade.”
The Rikon Scroll Saw can take both types of blades, and the installation and removal of the pin-style blades is fairly intuitive – the bottom hooks right in, as does the top, with only a little bit of finagling. The pinless blades need to be fitted into the adapters that come with the scroll saw, and you can use the blade length gauge on the top of the saw to do a quick blade transfer, using the included allen wrench.
A couple of tips that I didn’t know when I started, but helped me immensely once I figured them out:
1. Make sure the blade is not bottoming out in the adapter, otherwise you won’t leave the space needed to attach the adapter to the blade supports.
2. Pop the throat plate out of the table and tilt the table to 45 degrees – that will give you much better access to both places where you need to attach the adapters.
For all of you who get more out of watching the process than reading about it, we have a video that demos the process of removing the pinless blade from the scroll saw. And although we didn’t film it, re-installing the blade requires only that you reverse the steps shown in the video.
Thanks so much to Ed Scent for his expertise!
This is a five day series of videos. To start at Day 1, click here. To see the previous post, click here. To see the next post, click here.
Now that I’ve watched a few scroll saw demos (day 1 & day 2), I feel much more comfortable trying it myself. We have never had a suitable star for the top of our tree, and I thought I could design a simple pattern and make it myself.
We had a bunch of old pallets in the basement, so I grabbed some of the wider pieces, cleared out all the nails, ran it through the planer a few times, and had my board ready to cut. For the design, I thought a star outline might be pretty, so I drew a star, and then drew a larger star around it. This would require some tight angle maneuvering as well as an interior cut that would help me to practice detaching and reattaching the blade. No problem!
The first attempt was…a good learning experience. After a few too-tight cuts, I have learned that my scroll saw shades to the left, and I need to be consciously making adjustments for that. I’ll have to check if I can do some alignment on the saw that will help this, but for now, it just requires me to be a diligent scroller, which is an okay thing to practice, I think. Unfortunately I learned this the hard way, when one of the walls of my star cut a little too close, and broke.
While looking at that photo in confusion a few times, I realized it is creating an optical illusion that sometimes looks like I cut a star out of my workbench. I assure you, this is not the case.
After my first not-entirely-successful attempt, I got out another piece of the pallet, drew a similar design, and did not plane the board quite as thin. This one was going to work.
I drilled a hole in the center and cut out the inside of the star, then I continued with the outside edges. I developed a technique where I would cut a “turn-around hole” at all the sharp corners, so I could back into it and avoid having to make a more-than-90 degree turn that might have tested my beginner skills. Luckily there was a lot of waste space in which to make these extra cuts. Before I knew it, the star was cut out and ready for sanding.
One of the great bonuses you get when you purchase the Rikon 16″ Scroll Saw combo from Highland Woodworking is the flex shaft kit, which gives you a lot of options for sanding and polishing your projects once you are done cutting them on the Scroll Saw.
Once the star was all sanded and smooth, I did a quick metallic silver paint job (we like our Christmas trees somewhat garish) and glued on a clothespin to attach it. I had completed my first scrollsawing project! And I’m all ready to go back for more.
Here’s a brief demonstration of the flex shaft driving a carbide cutter on a simple project – it really helps with finishing:
This is a five day series of videos. To start at Day 1, click here. To see the previous post, click here. To see the next post, click here.
Now that you have your Rikon 16″ Scroll Saw set up and ready to go, it’s time to make something! And if you haven’t used a scroll saw before, you may be wondering what this tool can really do. I always find that, before I just go experiment with a tool, I like to see someone with a bit of experience working with it, so I get a better feel for how it works, what speed to go at, and what things I can do that won’t be pushing to the edge of the tool’s capacity. The video below is for all of you who learn like me, and want to see the tool in action first.
If you have further questions after watching this video, keep in mind that the Rikon 16″ Scroll Saw being sold at Highland currently comes with an excellent one hour instructional DVD featuring master craftsman John Burke. I know I said it yesterday but I’ll say it again today (and probably yet again tomorrow!) but this is a craft that you CAN learn, and a great entrance to woodworking in general. And this Scroll Saw is perfect for a beginner to learn on. And powerful enough for an experienced Scroller to appreciate!
Enjoy the video! And tune in tomorrow to see a short demo of the high-speed flex shaft, currently included with the Rikon Scroll Saw package deal at Highland.
This is a five day series of videos. To start at Day 1, click here. To see the next post in the series, click here.
A great tool to try if you want to get into woodworking is a scroll saw. And the Rikon 16″ Scroll Saw is a great beginner’s tool. With its quick and easy set up, you’ll have it out of the box and cutting a pattern before you know it.
To help you with that process, we’ve got a few videos that will help you through setting up the scroll saw and making your first cut. In today’s video, Ben Arthur, of the Highland Woodworking sales staff, will review the features and setup of this versatile tool, and show you a few of the things it can do. And make sure to tune in tomorrow for more of Ben’s scroll saw wisdom.
This is a five day series of videos. To see the next post in the series, click here.
I am new enough to woodworking that a lot of things I encounter still make me say ‘Wow’. And honestly, I hope this novelty never wears off. I’d much rather be devoting my time to a craft that offers new and fascinating surprises every day than one that is the same, day in and day out.
But even though I am easily surprised and impressed by the capabilities of our fellow woodworkers and the tools they use, every once in awhile it hits the next level. Things that make me say ‘WOW!’
That is all caps, with at least one exclamation point. (A very scientific method of measuring my response, right?)
This week, the woodworking tool that elicited an all-caps WOW! from me was a set of Imperial Blades, used with the Fein Multimaster. If you’ve ever heard the phrase “Tougher than Nails”, well, that applies literally to these impressive blades. The video below shows a Fein Multimaster being used to cut 97 nails and saw off the end of a 2×4, all with the same blade. Check it out, and then just try not to think about how useful this tool would be in your workshop. And I can almost guarantee that you won’t be able to help saying WOW! when you see it in action.
I am new enough to woodworking that a lot of things I encounter still make me say ‘Wow’. And honestly, I hope this novelty never wears off. I’d much rather be devoting my time to a craft that offers new and fascinating surprises every day than one that is the same, day in and day out.