You Are Only As Good As You Take the Time to Be

Cut this one out in the shoppe tonight. It is a lovely piece of word art from a pattern by scroll saw artist and pattern designer Sue May. I've sold quite a few of these so when a friend at my

day job ask me to make one for her to give as a "Secret Santa" gift I was pleased to oblige.

So I came home and copied the pattern and pieced it together (to big to fit on one sheet) and

affixed it to a 1/4 inch piece of baltic birch plywood.

As I looked over the pattern I thought "Gee, this is pretty simple. Nice big interior cutouts, long sweeping gentle curves, no real delicate work, I should be able to knock this out in about 15 minutes". BUZZZZZ!!!! WRONG!!!

I started with the interior cuts as I always do and began to zip through them. Suddenly I began to notice that my curves were looking flat on one side. Some spots that should be straight were turning out rather crooked. I finished cutting it out in about 45 minutes and peeled the pattern off it and began to look it over. IT WAS AWFULL!!!! The tops of the "L's" had flat spots all over them, the big "O"(mind out of the gutter please!) looked like a flat tire and the "f" in often looked like a crooked tree limb. Well this won't do. I can't give her this. So after supper I decided to cut another one. Hey, mu reputation is on the line when I let my blade wander so far off the line, so it is back to fundamentals.

When cutting big sweeping curves that bend into short tight ones like the "L's" in Live and Life it is important to let the blade do the work and not "push" your work into the blade. You must keep light finger pressure on the piece and just guide it through the blade and do not stop to re-orient the blade to the line. When you do that you get those flat spots. You take it SLOW and steer the wood through the curve just like you would your car. Steer too slow and your blade will wander to the outside of the curve. Too fast and the blades cuts to the inside of the curve.

It takes a lot of practice, and I've had a lot of practice but for some reason tonight I thought I could just zip through it and get away with it. I'm too embarrassed to even show you that first attempt. I did keep it right in front of me as I cut the second one just to remind me where I messed it up. Another I did was to cut the second one sitting on a stool. I tried the first one standing up and with some of the cuts being extraordinarily long my back just can't take it anymore.

But, in conclusion, no matter how good you think you are (and I think this includes everything you attempt to do in life) you are only as good as you take the time to be.