Five inspirational desk clocks. I kept the design simple so the message was the main focus. There are five different messages in the pattern book. The main body of the clock is 8" X 4" X 1". The clock insert is a 2 3/4" clock that requires a 2 3/8" diameter mounting hole. Here is a link to the one I used from Bear Woods. Bear Woods Clock Insert.

Simple and quick tip to solve a safety problem:

Tonight I was cutting some fairly small letters from one-inch thick wood. The pieces were just small enough to fall down through the table blade hole after they were cut. They were just large enough to sometimes get wedged while they were falling through the hole.

This would cause the blade to bind and force the wood to jump up rapidly and slam back down on the table. I was running the saw at high speed so this jumping would happen too quickly for me to prevent it by letting off the foot switch.

I have been doing this long enough that I did not pinch my fingers between the wood and the table but it does happen. It is actually one of the more common accidents that happen on the scroll saw.

Here is a quick solution to this problem.

Take a piece of cardstock or business card and cut a slit to about the middle of the card.

Tape it to the table.

Now when you finish the cut, the piece will stay in the wood because there is not enough room for it to fall through. This is called a zero clearance. This greatly reduces the chances of the blade binding and causing the jump.

You can sometimes just use the blue painter's tape for the zero clearance but it gets torn up pretty fast. The card is more durable.

There is another and separate cause for the wood to jump up and down that this tip does not help. When cutting thicker wood and making a sharp turn the blade can bind and cause the wood to jump.

This can be minimized by using a smaller blade or just being aware of when this bind might happen and getting a good grip on the wood.

This is one reason that I don't follow the charts when selecting blades. I almost always use a thinner blade even when cutting thicker woods. It gives me better control of my turns. The drawback is that I have to cut slower. It's a tradeoff.

Totally non-scroll saw tip: Grammarly

I wish it were not true but my grammar is poor. If you read my blog you already know that but I'll say it out loud. I wish I had been a better student but that was not my focus during my school years. I was a jock. My goal was to get to basketball practice. I had to make good enough grades to play basketball and that's what I did.

I had no idea that I would spend years writing a blog. Luckily my blog does not require an eloquent writing style. It just requires that I get information put down in an understandable form. Most of the time I manage to do that but poor grammar can affect the way others accept your information. I wanted to change that if I could.

I needed a crutch to help with my writing. I found a plugin for my browser that is just outstanding. It can't improve my ability to put words together in the style of Hemmingway but it can help prevent me from using the wrong word, poor punctuation and general grammar slip-ups.

The name of this plugin is Grammarly. I use it in the Chrome browser. It is also available for Firefox, Edge, and Safari web browsers. Grammarly is way more than a spell checker. It recommends corrections for many common writing errors.

When it detects a potential error it underlines it in red. You then hover your mouse pointer over the error and it recommends a correction. You click the correction and it is made for you. It is quick and efficient. It does not get in the way of your train of thought. It just works quietly in the background.

I can highly recommend this extension. Even if you just use it when composing an email it is worth the effort to install it.

I will never be a good writer. That boat has sailed. With Grammarly, I can put words on the screen and have a fighting chance of not looking stupid.

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Products for your consideration:

Scroll Saw Pattern Design Tutorial: DVD
Let me teach you to create a beautiful wooden portrait pattern. I will show you everything you need from start to finish. The video will show you the free software program you can download for Windows or Mac OS. I will show you how to install the program and configure it for best results.

Then I will show you the technique to take your photograph and make a pattern from it. When the pattern is complete we will go in the shop and cut it.

The DVD is $10 plus shipping. This is a data DVD that you will use on your computer to watch the video tutorial

Every Scrollsaw Workshop Pattern from 2007-2017 in DVD

Purchase the entire Scrollsaw Workshop pattern catalog for offline access.

This DVD has 2,300 patterns published from 2007 thru 2017.
The DVD is $20 plus shipping. Ships to 60 countries around the world.

Click here to Order.

If you use the DVD on a Windows PC there is a simple viewer program to browse through the patterns.

The DVD also works fine on a MAC. The viewer program is not MAC compatible but there is an included PDF with all the patterns shown as thumbnails for easy viewing.

Unique Wooden Vases:
Want to create beautiful wooden vases on the scroll saw?

My two "Wooden Vases on the Scroll Saw" books make it easy.

The books are $12 each and available for instant download after purchase. Click for Video Demonstration.

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