"Along came a spider" ... newbie project with work guide

[jim_mex]

Hi all - Presenting "Along came a spider" ... my second segmentation project with detailed work guide for newbies

This spider motif was adapted from a drawing in a children's book which struck me as being amusing and following lots of encouraging comments on my last weekends first foray into scrolling and segmentation work with my 'monkey' effort, I thought it might be useful to other newbies to present my next project and how I tackled it and at the same time hopefully fish for some more comments from pros on anything I could have done better or different to help my progress.

So here goes:

Day 1. - 4 hours work

1. I drew up the motif on the computer as vector outline paths from a scan of the original - this time I went for a bigger design - 14 1/2" wide x 10 1/2" height.

2. I initially chose to use poplar wood stock for this project to take nice bright coloured wood stains and give me a really easy wood to work with. This went fine until I cut the hairpiece and promptly snapped it during sanding! A quick rethink and a switch to a much harder beech for the hair and legs sorted that one out.

3. Apart from the eyes and mouth, which were a bit fiddly since I inside cut them out of the face stock, the cutting of all the other parts on this project was a newbies dream. Drifting from the pattern not only can be accommodated but actually adds to the appeal. The hairpiece was a bit of freeforming with more drifting and bad turns due to lack of blade control, which I'm still working on, but the end result seems to have worked out ok..

One important point, after breaking the initial poplar hairpiece this at least also reminded me to cut all the other pieces with the woodgrain running in the correct direction!

The inner mouth and teeth were fun with a little cheat here worthy of note. Instead of cutting the teeth directly from the mouthpiece I cut first the holes then with a very sharp pencil transferred the cutout outlines from the mouthpiece onto stock to then cut the teeth, which I cut slightly oversize. A light sanding down afterwards got them to fit the mouth cutouts perfectly. (A recent visit to the dentist to have a couple of crowns repaired prompted this idea!)

Finished part thicknesses - face 7/8", legs 3/8", boots and nose 1/2", mouth and teeth variable to suit.

4. Stock shaping involved the usual sanding over of sharp edges with additional shaping on the face, eyes, nose and mouth, leaving the bottom 3/8" thickness of face part untouched in order to give a nice fit to the hairpiece and legs/arms. I had to give the hairpiece a bit of an Elvis 'quiff' to account for my previous rounding over of the top of the face .... something I overlooked as I initially thought to have the hair set further forward

All sanding, like the cutting out, was deliberately aimed at giving a less than perfectly shaped form to give the piece a bit more of a rustic hand made look - my excuse which I'm sticking with!

My new Dremel Mullti Pro helped tremendously with the rounding over but I found one setback here. When using the sanding attachment on the higher speeds it was easy to burn the beech leaving an ugly blackish discolouration which takes some removing with fine sandpaper. This mistake also clogged the sander attachment rendering it almost useless. Solution, less speed, less pressure and more patience!


After cutting here is what the pieces looked like

Gif drawing of pattern/rough guide (vector .eps or .ai available later if anyone wants to have a go at this):
http://jmossmx.com/ss_imgs/spider.gif

Links to fotos of cut pieces:

http://jmossmx.com/ss_imgs/spidercuts01.jpg
http://jmossmx.com/ss_imgs/spidercuts01.jpg
http://jmossmx.com/ss_imgs/spidercuts01.jpg

Day 2 - Finishing - about another 4 hours

End result fotos:








1. The final result involved a re-cut of the hairpiece to make it thicker (1 1/2" max.). I had no beech stock at this thickness so I use a scrap of mahogany - a bit softer than I wanted but ok.

2. Most of the color is from alcohol based wood stains applied 'watered down with a spot of alcohol and several coats to build up the tone - I do this so as not to have the wood 'suck' the stain and leave an ugly hard edge from the tampon I use (no guys! not what you are thinking!!) ie a piece of white teeshirt fabric. After staining and natural drying I applied a polyurethane base sealing coat which brings up most of the rough of the wood. A light sanding then removes this.

The tonal finish of the stain didn't look strong enough for what will be a kids decoration so I decided to highlight the face with some stippled white acrylic paint applied lightly and very dry with small ball of cotton fibre waste. The red cheeks were done the same way. The socks are acrylic paints applied to the sealed wood surface. The eyes and teeeth also got a coat of white acrylic paint to really make them stand out - I tried using a white wood dye but it looked too washed out - the pupils of the eyes are black stained dowels inset into drill holes.

3. Regarding the "almost" finished comment.

The piece has only 1 top coat of semi matte polyurethane top varnish. I aimed to finish it today but have just been informed that a family enforced day out has been planned, scuppering me!

Generally I would apply 3 top coats with increasingly finer sanding between coats moving from 80 to 200 to 400 grade wet & dry emery paper (the sort used for metalworking). One point here - I don't use traditional fine grit woodworking sandpaper for sanding between varnish coats as the local gritpaper is very variable in quality and its not unusual for example for a grade 150 - 180 to occasionally have a few pieces of large grit in the sheet. These play havoc with any very finely finished surface. The quality of the wet and dry is far superior and doesn't have this problem.

As the piece is technically not yet finished I haven't glued it down to the backing boarding - in fact I haven't made the backing board yet!! What you see is the spider carefully assembled on top of a sheet of thick paper which has had textured acrylic paint rapidly applied to it with 2" paint brush.

I consider this a worthwhile cheat to visualise what the end result will look like - or, paraphrasing the bard - " Oh what a wonderous web we weave, when err we practise to deceive....."

The string - was white also but got a dose of wood stain - its there just to show off. I'm now waiting for some smart arse experienced scroller to ask why I didn't scroll this - LOL!

That's it!

As a novice scroller this piece has really fired me up and I'm very pleased with the result - already it has aroused family interests so it looks like I'll soon be making more 'Itsy Bitsy' spiders. Great for improving my technique!

For newbies, I stress that this is a real easy project and you don't need to be creative or too professional to make it, just go slow and you'll get there.

With some imagination the design has an infinite number of change possibilities. I fancy a spider with a monocle, english bowler hat and umbrella in true 'Itsy Bitsy fashion - maybe even a water spout. Also another with a mexican sombrero and moustache. I've also had the suggestion to kit one out in the local football (soccer) team's strip!

Endless changes of socks to shoes to gumboots to sports shoes are possible and of course the colours, hairstyle, leg shapes and positions can all be varied and will be knowing my cutting skills! Finally the nose could also be replaced by a simple clock with numerals painted around the spiders face. Etc, etc, ad nauseum ....

For my next spider I'm planning to make a simple flash tutorial to show all the stages and save writing all this verbal diarrhea.



As you can imagine, I'm really enjoying this scrolling lark and the bug, or at least the spider, has definitely bit - oops , yet another idea - what about a sexy and slightly evil looking black widow! - hehehe!

Cheers
and remember - the secret is scroll, don't fret - Jim

[greatdane2]

Cool. And the verbal diarrhea is only in your mind. It helps the rest of us understand what you are doing and how to do it ourselves. So thanks for taking the time to type it all out. and the Spider looks great, You might look at cutting the backer out of aluminium sheet and epoxying it. the ply backer will show to much on the legs unless very thin, and very thin is very weak.

Alan.

[jim_mex]

Nice comments Alan and a nice tip for the backer.
This effort is going to be stuck onto a painted MDF Board to go in a frame for my sons bedroom but the backer idea is really appealing for my next one as I think these adornments look really cool just hung on a wall - particularly as I'm thinking of making a spider clock

Keep these tips coming, my leaning curve is going exponential at the moment but I'm really pleased for all the guidance on this forum and already feel at home here.

have a good weekend
Jim

[Wood Dog]

Way cool Jim.......thanks for the pattern. I can only assume you do not type with 2 fingers.
I am thrilled about your enthusiasm....keep it up, and we sure do love pictures around here.

[greatdane2]

You can get metal cutting blades for a scroll saw. The main trick is HOLD DOWN the metal as it wants to jump a lot more than wood.

Alan.

[JohnB]

G'day Jim,
The Ol' spider came out looking excellent.

As a bloke that's built rooms, fitted out kitchens, down to small scrolled boxes, I've never tried intarsia or segmentation.
Janett's work just makes me shudder, I look at her brilliant pieces and quickly get back in my box.
Not saying that your piece is not very good, but it is simple enough to give me some inspiration.

Thanks for the run down, it is appreciated.

[jim_mex]

Hi John

Janett's work just makes me shudder, I look at her brilliant pieces and quickly get back in my box.

My first thoughts exactly when I visited the forum as a guest a couple of weeks ago and saw her and other scrollers work! Nevertheless, I came here looking to try something new as a hobby and I'm really surprised to break the ice into segmentation scrolling so quickly, albeit starting with really simple stuff.

I admit to being a blatant copist/adapter of other peoples techniques and ideas and even though I could never approach the artistic skills of someone like Janette and her fellow professional scrollers I'm hopeful to at least get to a satisfying level over the coming months.

Ref 'jumping back in the box' - I reckon if you try something new the worst you can do is make a pigs ears of things and say nowt to nobody - LOL! - and put it down to bad experience. But I reckon with a healthy combination of interest and an 'up to the challenge' attitude on anything new all things are possible. I love learning new things and probably as important I doggedly hate being beaten - a nice starting point!

I'm finding this to be a great forum with plenty of assistance from talented and knowledge people so lets see what happens next.

So, when do we see your first segmented kookaburra, mate?

G'day
Jim

[Janette]

That's great! Thanks for sharing your process and experience. We've all got to start somewhere. I started by buying someone elses and was so intrigued, I had to learn. Don't let my work intimidate you! ...use it as a goal. When I used to get frustrated, a dear friend told me..there are no complicated projects - just ones with more pieces! I tell myself that a lot. Practice practice practice. Keep up the great work! And John...you really need to dive into intarsia one day and give it a whirl!

[greatdane2]

Janette, your work does intimidate us lower beings. What spurs me on is the fact that you and others that can do what you do, are willing to give advise and encourgement to us try to do what you do so well. Its all very well to see stuff in a book or a magazine but to personally talk (on this site) to you guys and get feedback is what makes this site so important to me.
So this is to all you experts, thank you for taking the time to help us try new things and try to do things beyond our dreams. We can not say thank you loud enough.

Alan.

[jim_mex]

Hi Janette - its a real bonus to read your comments. Thanks very much for the encouraging words and the inspiration your work provides.

Rest assured I intend to move those goal posts closer with each new project I attempt.

I fully echo Alan's comments

regards
Jim