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Bob Easton

Chocolate powered woodworking

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New Frame Saw / Scroll Saw

November 26, 2022 by Bob Easton 8 Comments

It’s smoother, more accurate, quieter, and doesn’t scare the children.

photo of the scroll saw from the front

My previous scroll saw was an attachment for my treadle powered lathe. It was built from a postage stamp sized drawing by Roy Underhill. While it served well for years, it is a clanky, rickety, wobbly, insanely noisy collection of loose parts pretending to almost work as a saw. Accuracy is subjective. Yet, I cut many wood carving projects with it and was satisfied until arriving at a new project that wants several parts thicker than the saw could handle; basswood parts that are 3 inches thick.

This new saw, also treadle operated, is a simple frame saw that has the frame moving in a vertical plane, riding very smoothly on drawer slides.

photo of treadle operated frame saw

The support frame is simply an unfinished flat assembly of construction grade 2 x 4 lumber, joined by half-laps. It clamps to the front face of my workbench. Drop a rope from the bottom of the moving frame, loop it around a hinged treadle, and we have the motive power that pulls against the spring at the top of the support frame. That spring is only a couple of strips of quarter inch thick lattice, and more rope. Functional, not pretty.  It has the added benefit of storing away in minimal space.

For the table that supports the workpiece, I use my woodcarving bench-on-bench sitting behind the frame. Clamped to the bench is a piece of cabinet shelving with a hole drilled for the blade. Simple, and as with the other parts, easily stored in minimal space.

The saw frame itself is poplar, using bridle joinery. Most important are the blade holding pins and blade. These are parts from the Tools For Working Wood 12″ bow saw. I’ve used them before for a wonderful turning saw and for that earlier scroll saw. I cannot say enough good about them. The bottom pin has its flange trapped by a wood block screwed to the bottom of the frame. The top pin is adjustable thanks to being pinned inside a lamp pipe which can move inside that upper block. Tensioning is via a slightly bent cross bar. A variety of blades from TFWW offer a good range of cutting options.

photo of top blade holder
top blade holder
photo of top blade holder parts
top holder details
photo of bottom blade holder
bottom blade holder
photo of cut pieces for a Gibbons-like woodcarving

So, how well does it work? Two answers. The next photo shows the parts of a new carving project, all but one cut with this saw. They are 2 and 3 inches thick, with the longest being 21 inches long. The video shows a comparison between the old saw and the new.

What I haven’t shown you are the smiles that come along with using the new one.

Inspiration

The first inspiration appeared in the middle of a video made by Esteban Jiménez at his woodcarving shop in Barcelona. His treadle operated frame saw is gigantic in comparison to what I wanted. Impressive! Watch Esteban describe it and then demonstrate its operation:

Another inspiration is one of many examples I found of treadle operated fret saws used by marquetry artists. Here we see Christina Moreno using her frame saw:

Filed Under: frame saw, Shopmade, Woodcarving

Lamppost Sign

October 19, 2022 by Bob Easton 2 Comments

photo of home with a lamppost in front

Until now, there was only one hand painted lamppost sign in a group of 500 homes.  Now there are two.

Every home around here has a lamppost in front of the house, and each lamppost has a bar for hanging a sign.  Typical signs show the first names of people who live there, their house number and some other ornament such as the logo of their favorite collegiate sports team. The signs also show an uncanny sameness, not surprising when one knows that the documentation package for a new home sale includes a coupon for the sign maker.

Here was a chance for me to paint something different, a sign derived from the folk art known in Buenos Aires as “Fileteado Porteño.” The artform has a long history that includes a rise in popularity during the middle of the last century, a tailing off due to many of the original artists passing away, a period when a totalitarian government tried to ban it, and a recent resurrection that has made is popular once again.

I’ve been enchanted by the style for years and what better chance to imitate it than to make our own sign. Full of acanthus leaves, scrolls, flowers, birds, and dragons, these signs are vibrant with bold multi-layered colors.

close up photo of the lamppost sign. It has 2 large acanthus scrolls with dragons emerging, several other flowers and birds, and the words "Bob & Eva" with the house number 931.

In his book “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell expresses the idea that it takes about 10,000 hours to achieve mastery.  For sign painting, I still have something like 9,411 hours to go. This was a very enjoyable project and I’ve started picking up a new skill.

Minor details: the sign is 13″ by 18″ painted on aluminum material intended for traffic signs. The base coat is sprayed enamel. All of the other elements are hand painted with “1-Shot” sign painter’s enamel. It’s topped with a sprayed clearcoat.

Filed Under: sign painting

Goodbye PayPal – Goodbye Bob’s eBooks

October 14, 2022 by Bob Easton Leave a Comment

Effective immediately, my PayPal account is closed, and my eBooks are no longer available.

First, PayPal:

Someone, or maybe many someones, at PayPal have chosen to climb aboard the woke train. They, like many other social platforms and some corporations have decided that if you don’t accord their beliefs they will fine you or cancel you, or both. PayPal has been rather quietly deplatforming, erm “suspending”, their customers for some time, but last week updated their Acceptable Use Policy to be able to fine people (steal from their account balances) up to $2500 for sins of offering unacceptable discourse.

Oh! They “never intended” to release that notice:

“An AUP notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information,” the spokesperson said. “PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy.”

Yes, they have recanted that news, but have actually left enough of the policy in place to use it when they want.

These policies are blatant censorship, assaults on free speech. I’ll have none of it. My account is closed and I say “Good Riddance” to the woke idiots who want to ruin their own business.

source: Yahoo! Finance – 10/15/22

REF: https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/10/paypal-updates-user-policy-to-include-possible-2500-fine-for-speech-it-doesnt-like/

REF: https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/10/paypal-reverses-course-on-2500-misinformation-fines-after-massive-pushback/?utm_source=rss

REF: https://reclaimthenet.org/paypal-fine-2500-intolerance-discriminatory/

REF: https://reclaimthenet.org/how-to-delete-paypal/

UPDATE:

A follower very kindly contacted me within minutes of publication of an article about alternatives to PayPal. Sincere thanks for that pointer! Maybe it can also help those of you who also operate online businesses. Read: 10 PayPal alternatives – for privacy or free speech

Second, my eBooks:

MANY THANKS to those of you who over the years have purchased my eBooks. As you might know, those were simply collections of my own articles on particular topics. Pulling them together into single documents was done for reader convenience. Sales have done well enough for such a minor adventure. They were interesting to assemble and have apparently been useful to many of my readers. I sincerely appreciate all who bought them. Thank You!

Alternatives? Today’s wokeness with payment processors is something I can no longer tolerate. PayPal’s deplatforming is well known and the next most popular alternative, Stripe, has also shown a woke stripe. As did the third choice, Amazon. We can keep walking down the list of other payment processors and find more of the same. I don’t have the energy to continue looking for others. I’m done.

P.S. Long time readers know that this blog is for hobby interests. While I have strong political views, I don’t express them on this blog. I have no Twitter account. My Facebook account was suspended years before the pandemic for a reason I don’t even remember. The only other social media account I have is an Instagram account where I post nothing and keep the account only to observe other artisans. So, it’s not like I’m a rabble rouser, I am simply a strict First Amendment believer.

“Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist.”

– Frederick Douglass

Filed Under: About, eBook, resawing, treadle lathe

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