Owl Portrait Progress

[Trout]

I like the detailed pictures...
your right you did miss a couple holes...
I wish my pattern looked that good in the middle of a project...
so that's what the head of a Dewalt saw looks like?

Trout

[minowevie]

Yep Bill Marcel is right again. it would be better in dvd. or cd. what ever. all I know is. you are defenitly going some where. and fast. I will be the first in line to buy your dvd. or book. Daaaaaaaa. if we could just get you off your saw long enouph. no kidding here. I bet Jeff Z is proud of you. and you and he would make a great teem. HUH Jeff. don't you thingk. Evie

[ozarkhillbilly]

Thanks all for the interest, perhaps this will help someone, or maybe someone will see a better way to do it and enlighten me!

I cut for 2 hours and 15 min. tonight, hope the pictures help and I can explain things well enough for all to understand.

The first set shows the tape I applied to hold my previous cutout in place. As Evie mentioned this will give me a little more of a sound surface to place my hands while cutting, and also gives support to those areas during my cutting. I mean to tell you, these pieces are fragile with the cutouts removed. I placed tape on both sides, this keeps the cutout from falling out when I have to move the piece off my table to poke out some of the smaller wood pieces that dont come out on their own.

[minowevie]

Bill ,,,,, do you always take out the pieces ? after cutting. mmm I leave mine in. I find this gives even more suport for the blade as it is cutting the next piece.it has more subtants . not just a big hole on the other side of the fragile briedg. or whatever. Im sure i missed something. did you meen just the very small pieces? your doing great. and your cutting and pictures are wonderful. thank you. Evie

[minowevie]

woops, sorry Bill, I read back more carfully. and that is what you did say. hold the small fragile piece in place while you moved it. sorry. wish i would have learned this trick long ago. thanks. what did you say? Pay attintion. got ya. Evie brain went out of the room ho ho.

[ozarkhillbilly]

OK this set starts off with the 1st picture showing where I started in cutting the left hand corner of the pattern, again I'll be starting from the closest cut center and working out towards the corner in sort of a sweeping motion.

The 2nd picture shows an area that has two inside cuts, which I will do first before removing the area of wood which surounds the piece they are in. Sorry about the quality of the picture. The 3rd picture came out better showing you the two pieces I am talking about.

Now on the fourth picture, it shows the area of wood mentioned in the previous paragraph removed, you can see what a pain it would of been trying to cut those two small cutouts had the area of wood surrounding it been cut first. With many of JZ's patterns you always have to be on the look out for this type of situation. Also in this picture I am showing you the same thing about to be cut, I've highlighted the next two cuts in red, to be followed up by cutting out the area with the blue marker. Dang, I hope this is making sense!

[ozarkhillbilly]

These last two pictures show my last piece in the corner I am about to cut, then the finished work of the night.

4 hours and 15 min. into the piece so far. And 7 blades.

Please if you have any questions on my feeble attempt to explain myself, please ask! Explaining is harder then cutting!

[bearfretworks]

Great job and excellent tutorial Bill!

Man, don't you ever worry about goofing it up? You must have nerves of steel...One sneeze, a speck of dust in your eye, a little blurry vision and POOF the whole thing is toast...all that work gone....... Phone ringing....blade breaking.........power outage........ I couldn't sleep I'd be so afraid of messing it up........You are my hero.......

[ozarkhillbilly]

Bear, nerves of steel? Naw! But I do get into a zone of focus that everything around me tends to disappear and it's just me the blade and a line

I like to think that my six years as an EOD troop in the military helps me some also, regarding staying focused and not letting outside distractions come into play. I still haven't figured out if that was nerves of steel or just the ignorance of youth

[ozarkhillbilly]

I was able to get in 1 1/2 hours this morning, the 1st and 2nd picture shows where I started on the bottom center and worked to the right. The 3rd picture shows where I started working down the right side of the pattern, and the fourth shows the overall cutting of the morning.

I'm off to work now and wont be home till 11:00 tonight, ya'll have a great day.

5 hours and 45min. and 11 blades into the pattern.

(I changed the blade a little more often doing the bottom of the tree, because of all the delicate areas and not wanting to push the blade harder then necessary.)