In the nick of time for a friend:)

[scottp55]

My friends girlfriend's(now fiancee) Grandfather was a Sawyer for most of his adult life, and when she was 16 he gave her a chainsawed "Round".
At 16 years old...she stuck it in her closet:)
He died last year, and she was dismayed that she didn't have much to remind her of him, except some phrases she remembered he always told her, the fact that he wanted to come back as a Cardinal(his favorite bird), and this chunk of wood. "Love Grampa" was from the very last letter he ever sent her.
Now that's she's of an age to appreciate what he did,
She didn't know what to do, but my friend said"Maybe Scott can help"
She was amazed what skimming the saw marks off and sanding to 600G and a coat of my Linseed "butter" did, and off we went into the design/font/etc.
JUST finished the last coat on side 2.
Hope she likes it for Valentines Day from my friend
I HATE working with a new wood(especially softwood) and not having a scrap piece for testing, and NO "do overs" allowed:(
13X17.5X1.2" Vladimir Script Onsrud 30 degree engraving with .01"flat on font side, Onsrud 60 with .005"flat on the reverse side.
scott

[dwilli9013]

Beautiful work. Am particularly fond of the verse. Makes good sense.
Thanks for sharing it.

[highpockets]

Scott I'm truly enjoy seeing what your creative mind and skilled hands can create.

Well done, I know she is going to be thrilled.

[Mark's Wood Chips]

I'm sure the effort you put into this will be cherished for decades. What a neat idea!

Mark

[martin54]

Nearly a good job Scott, would have been better if you had sliced it in two & hinged it so she could display both sides at the same time

[scottp55]

Thanks all:) (except for you Martin )
Had enough trouble with the second side. First side went slick as far as prep...my linseed butter and it was glorious:)
Second side, I got some Rockler Tung Oil and thinned it 50/50 like I've always done with Hope and Sutherland Welles and the darn thing not only soaked a ton of it, but when I rested it like in the pic, gravity let it settle on the bottom, and the Rockler never seems to dry!
20 years of oiling my house and everything in it, and never saw anything like it:(
Oh well.

OH, my friend is in deep doo doo, instead of Brownie Points
He has a contract for snow removal for a bunch of places in Portland, and he didn't make it here....didn't make it home for dinner...probably won't sleep tonight!
The whole city is removing snow for this next storm, and the trucks are backed up and running out of places to put it.
Somehow Valentine's days presents and dinners aren't the same the next day
scott

[martin54]

Scott, looking at it I can't really see much difference between the 2 sides so is that down to the pictures ?

One area I am a real novice is finishing so wondering why you would use a different finish on both sides if one side went really well & there is not much difference in the appearance of the 2 different finishes

Your right the next day Valentines dinner & present doesn't really cut it, neither does the " I will make it up to you next year" line

[angelandthebear]

mr. scott, might I ask what your spindle speed and feed rate for those bits. btw this is a super gift for her... beautiful work!

[scottp55]

Angel,
That's an easy one... As it was a one of, and no second chances I was very conservative...In IPS it was .5IPS(inX,Y),.35IPS( in Z) at 18K.
Martin, been checking my pictures to show the unevenness on second side, and don't have a real good one, but see first pic.
I use a Earthpaint polymerized Linseed/ beeswax 80/20 mixture I came up with for the buttons as we gave that company away in July, and I have a lot of it and love the ease of use and how finish gets better the more it's handled.
I told Rusty to sand to 600G while she and I worked on fonts and the tree of life,and she wanted to see the tree cut, so I slapped on some Lin Butter...waited 20 minutes and then cut it...the butter keeps fines from floating so I can leave dust foot off so people can watch the cut. It's worked well on 3D's as well applying before the finish cut, so I went for it. I did the butter to the whole first side.
Now usually the first coat of oil you want to penetrate as deeply into the wood as possible, as subsequent coats will never get that deep again, and I needed something on the other side so moisture differences didn't potato chip it.
Never having done softwood endgrain, It went in too far and was blotchy...probably should have used a sanding sealer?
On the first side the Lin Butter acted a little like a sealer, and therefore coats were more even.
I normally like Tung oil on light colored woods as it doesn't darken with age as much as Linseed does.
Other than that, the oils are compatible, and usually similar.
It took a lot of babysitting the light areas, heating and wiping off excess on the dark areas to get it like in those 4 pics.
Have I totally confused you now:)
I was in a rush with a pretty woman hanging over my shoulder wanting immediate wood gratification, and then went back to my standard time consuming method(which didn't work as well).
Think I'll stick with hardwoods

[angelandthebear]

thx for reply, but I'm the "bear" part of user name....

another question I believe I've seen you address back somewhere (wealth of knowledge and information you've proven to be here< THANKS AGAIN!) you treat your wood before carving with lin butter? does this allow you to cut small without chip out?

I've been trying to cut smaller w/o success on any mediums, mostly lettering.

Barry "the Bear"

[scottp55]

Barry,
I can only say for me from experimenting a couple years.
IF I have time, I'll put down a coat or two of 50/50 thinned Polymerized Tung or Linseed oil(highly recommend Earthpaints, and can do a coat a day) and wait a day(wiping ALL excess off after 30 minutes).
If rushing, I've tried a lot of stuff, but 50/50 thinned Defft or Watco brushing lacquer work well.
This is for hardwoods I usually cut like sugar Maple/Cherry/B.Walnut, and usually only for small depth cuts.
It does help with a lot of woods if tearout is occurring, but you have to play with it a bit depending on the cut.
When we were doing button cuts where the max depth of the pattern was around .01", Lacquer was standard for a days run regardless of species.
I usually only do the Lin/beeswax "Butter"(80/20 works well) on things like finish paths(3D) and tiny fonts, or when I'm leaving the dust foot off so People can watch.
Penetration on the first coat seems most important.
Thinned dewaxed shellac works fairly well also in case of non-oil finishes.
Almost totally oil finishes here.
You have to play with it:)
You should have seen the disaster when I experimented with squeegeeing Thin CA on scorched Maple
I'd first play with sharp bits and feeds/speeds, but coating does help for me personally.
scott

[angelandthebear]

Thx again, pic 3 really illustrated what I was looking for!

[zeeway]

Scott,

That treasure you have created will be cherished a long, long time. Great work.

Angie

[scottp55]

Thanks Angie!
Just heard back from Rusty....She LOVED IT!

Oh, Barry....Besides slowing X,Y Move Speeds, the most important thing I found was to slow my Z Plunge rate if tearing out.
Keep Z1 low, and Z2 as low as you dare to save a lot of time.
scott