what was your first ever piece ??

[mac1012]

After a few practice cuts this was the first piece I ever cut on the scroll saw :lol:

I found it lurking in my kitchen store cupboard yesterday , see I can do internal cuts 8)

not my kind of thing to do on a regular basis but I enjoyed making it

fairly easy shape and just some cheap ply wood with a soft wood 20mm backing

chippygeoff I want your advice I am starting to cut some childrens names into my clocks and want any advice how best to tackle it I know your son does some software for you but wondered what type font etc the letters will be pretty small and have some tight angle corners any tips ?

mark

 

[Chippygeoff]

Hi Mark. I liked your first piece, its a lot better than the first thing I made, which I think was a fish with no internal cuts. As you know I make many name signs every week, mainly orders from people that come to see me at the craft fairs. I think you have seen my face book page. I compose the names in word using word art and if the name is on a plinth virtually any font can be used, Disney being the favourite at the moment but this wont work on the face of a clock, you need a dedicated scroll saw font. The one I use the most is called scroll beech italic. I have tried sending this in the past to other members but it has not worked, I will have to ask my son if there is a way I can get round the problem and if he comes up with the solution I will send it to you. In your shoes I would design the clock front on the computer using an A4 and then use word for the name, you can get it exactly where you want it by holding down the ALT key and using the arrows. Have fun.

 

[martinka]

I downloaded the scroll beach italic font a couple of weeks back, so I've made it available at http://www.mediafire.com/?7tgaiflby6cu7at
Clicking the link should take you to a download button.

Martin.

edit: There's a different font called Playmate at http://www.fontsner.com/font/Playmate-19837.html It's lowercase only, but it works for scrolling. You can type words in to see what the letters look like. I found another good one there, but as usual, I forgot what it's called.

edit again I found it, http://www.fontsner.com/font/FairyScrollDisplay_Italic-9418.html

 

[mac1012]

ok thanks Geoff and martin I have downloaded it and it has gone into my word documents , Geoff I haven't got word art as I got office 2003

I would like nothing more than to be able to draw the clock and create the dial spacings and position the name , but I am about as close to that as being called up by david moyes for his new side 8)

the letters are going to be quite small in height about 13mm :shock: prob a number one blade better get practising

I will need to go on a course or something on how to draw something like I need me thinks

mark

 

[martinka]

Have you got the free Inkscape program, Mark? It's a great program for messing around with patterns, and being vector based, it makes it easy to expand or shrink the pattern size for printing.

Double click the font to install it into Windows (I'm assuming Windows 7, I forgot what it's like in XP and haven't seen Win 8 yet.) When you run Inkscape, you can use the font from within the program. If you haven't used Inkscape, it can look a bit daunting, but if you have been using other Windows programs for some time, it is quite easy to pick up on how to use it. There's also many free bitmap graphics programs around that are easy to use.

Not trying to teach egg sucking here, I just don't know your computer capabilities.

Martin.

 

[Keato]

Unfortunately my first ever 'piece' was cut on the Proxxon DSH/2 and because the machine was faulty the 'piece' was more of a piece of wood than a piece. I've said piece too much. Now that I have my Excalibur EX-16 I'm much more confident with my cuts.

Anyway, It is my little cousins birthday today (she's 3) so Thursday & Friday last week I made this for her. Didn't take the full 2 days though as I was busy those 2 days too.
I guess this could be called my first piece.

Train was just a vector image brought into Illustrator with a 'Georgia' font used

 

[martinka]

Excellent first cuts, both Mark and Keato. The very first thing I cut was a celtic cross/circle, but the first serious try I can't remember, though there will be a pic of whatever it was on here somewhere. There's a good chance it was either the ship in a bottle, a fairy, or a unicorn.

Martin.