Rubber Band Gatling Gun

This is one of those projects that I have just wanted to do for a long time and kept putting it off. For ages I have happened across videos and photos all over the internet of these type toys and they have always peaked my interest. So I finally caved in and order the plans from here. I have seen a lot of others that looked more complicated. This site is where I remembered first seeing and entertaining this idea from though. So that is the source I decided to go back to when I was ready to purchase plans.

It is not a hard build. It is kind of aggravating to get it fine tuned to work just right. As a matter of fact, although I'm posting it now, it is still not completely finished. It still wants to hang up every now and then. I am not sure if it's the angle of the trip rod or something else. When it does hang up, it is no big deal. It'll just miss a rubber band or two. When you're loaded completely, with one hundred bands though, one or two doesn't make too much difference. I will go back at a later date and do some more fine tuning. However, for now, every time I mess with it, I get too busy playing with it to mess with the fine tuning to much degree.

I have only found one drawback to this toy. That is that it take between twenty and thirty minutes to load it. Then it takes two to four seconds to empty it of all one hundred rubber bands. It is fun though.

Mahogany Chest With Cedar Lining

I have been wanting to build this project again. I built one last Christmas season for my daughter out of solid aromatic cedar. I didn't have enough cedar for another just like it, so this one is mahogany with aromatic cedar lining.

While I wouldn't suggest this project to a beginner, it is not that difficult of one to do. A good table saw makes it a fairly doable project though for the novice woodworker with minimum scroll sawing skills. The plans can be purchased from Wildwood Designs here.

The shell of this one is made of solid mahogany. The front, sides, lid, and floor are lined with aromatic cedar. The plans give one scroll work panel design for the front and sides, and another one for the top. I wanted them all the same, so I just picked out my favorite of the two.

The Old Grist Mill

This is another Charles Dearing Pattern. It is an old Grist Mill. It took me longer to cut this one than most of the portraits I normally do because of all the detail in it. It was well worth it in my opinion though. The detail is what makes this portrait so nice to look at.

I went a completely different route than my usual on the frames for these. I used construction grade pine two by fours to make the frames. You'll notice some nail holes in some spots. Normally, nail holes in wood tags it for the fire place. It fit nicely though for the old, but new, look I was going for with these. After constructing the frames, I stained them with Minwax Dark Walnut stain. As I brushed the stain on, I came right behind it wiping it down with a rag. This is a technique I discovered by pure accident long time ago. Then after the stain was dry, I finished them with Polycrylic. I like polycrylic for something such as this because it offers a protective finish without adding too much of a shine to it.

The first photo is the cutting painted gray over a black background. The second one is luan over a black background. The last on is plain plywood over a gray background. My original intention was for the plain plywood one to be the gray painted cutting. However, after finishing it and standing back for a look, I liked the wavy grain look on it so much that I left it alone and painted one of the luan cuttings instead.

I hope most of you haven't gotten completely tired of all the portrait style cuttings as of late. I have been going through a rough time lately with my back pain issues. I promise that as soon as I am up to it I will tackle something with more structure to it. For the time being though, I am having to stick to projects I can do that involve less standing. I have my Delta scroll saw, that I do portraits on, set up so I can cut with it sitting in a chair.

Grizzly

After playing with the colors of the cutting on my last two portrait style cuttings, I wanted to do some playing with the background colors as well. Most of my portraits have a simple gloss black background which I accomplish by simply spray painting a piece of wood to back up the cutting with. I have done backgrounds with colors other than black. I wanted to take it a step further. What about a background with two different colors?

When I thought of this, it wasn't hard to make the jump to doing so with an appropriate pattern and simply mask off half the backer board and spray black on half of the board, over the blue. This created a black colored bear, with blue mountain and river details behind him. I really like how this turned out and will be trying to think of new ways to play around with colors in future portrait style cuttings.

Cowboys And Indians

Both of these patterns are designed by Charles Dearing.

I stack cut three of each of these two patterns. I decided to try something different though and play around with coloring styles. If you look closely, these were stack cut, so each are cut identical, yet they are each different. Some have the dark side of the luan plywood showing. Some have the light side. Some are painted.

As for the frame, I felt these needed something different than the mahogany I usually make my frames out of. I decided on construction grade pine ripped down for frames. It gave these portraits more of a rustic look in my opinion.

Flaming Skull

This is the dash of my truck. You may say I collect skulls.

I seldom find project that truly interest me besides the wood working aspect of it. I normally just do what I think other people might like. This is especially true for portrait style cuttings. It is just hard to find portrait patterns that I like myself. So when I seen the pattern for the Flaming Skull, I had to get it.

This is cut from a pattern by Charles Dearing. You can find Charles by doing a search for Charles Dearing on facebook. For you scrollers, he gets seven dollars each for his patterns. That is cheaper than most patterns I have ever bought. I like it also that he'll send you the patterns through email, so there is no waiting for them to come in the mail.

He also has plenty of cuttings for sale on his facebook page if you're interested.

This Little Piggy

This little piggy is not so little.

This is a very large piggy bank. The slot that you drop money in is three quarters of an inch wide and five inches long. It is made of cottonwood. The lips, nose, and ears have pink paint and the rest of the pig is stained with Minwax Pecan Stain.

I made it out of the rocking pig plans that can be purchased here. A friend of mine needed a birthday gift for his wife and she likes pigs. I just hogged out the center of the body and made a slot to drop money into and turned the pig part of the rocker into a piggy bank.