Patrick Spielman Nativity Segmentation - really simple project!

[jim_mex]

Hi - I crawled out of my sick bed Sunday morning after a week down and out with the flu and immediately got asked to do a 'rush' job for a visiting friend of the family whose leaving today. Luckily I had my copy of "Scroll Saw Segmentation" by P. Spielman on my desk and the person in question asked if I could make her one of his nativity patterns. As this seemed a fairly easy task with no design work or need to think from my part I decided to go for it.

For material, I'd just acquired a board of 9" wide x 1" thick Mexican fresno (ash) and I was eager to try cutting this wood for the first time so I scaled the pattern down to 8" width and got going. The ash was pretty hard, a little bit fibrous, but fairly easy to cut - as usual with me slow and patiently wins the race! The only shaping involved a slight rounding over of all the edges using a small drum sander and a home made flutter wheel.

I finished the piece almost exactly as shown in the book, using sponged on/off artist acrylic paints and a semi matte polyurethane top coat finish.

The whole project from start to finish took 4 hours - a little less than 1 1/2 hours for hand planing and sanding the board plus the scroll cutting. About the same time for shaping, 1/2 hr for painting and 1/2 hr for mounting on a backing board followed by top coat finishing.

Our friend was thrilled to bits when she saw the result this morning and although this is a really simple design I like it so much for its simplicity and colour combination that I'll be making another one for home.

The only thing I would change next time around would be the blade size used for cutting. I use a #7 reverse FD blade mainly as I'd run out of #5's - the latter would have been my blade of choice to minimize the kerf size.

Definitely a project I'd recommend to any newbie with a little cutting experience and a resulting finished piece that should see out more future Christmas's than I probably will - LOL!

Have fun!

[greatdane2]

Glad to see you are up and doing. This piece looks like the same quality as every other thing you have done. The shaping and colours look great.

[Wood Dog]

Four hours, and just out of a sick bed.........my hats off to ya Jim.
Looks great.

[Jr_Ranger]

Jim,
Now that is just gorgeous. Your colors are great and nicely added. A very pleasing piece to admire. Hope you are feeling better today.
Off to find the book. Thanks for sharing beautiful piece.

[jim_mex]

Hi folks - thanks for the kind compliments and the best wishes - both received gratefully.

After a literally miserable week of freezing cold weather I should also mention that the photo was shot in my back garden at 10 am this morning with not a cloud in the sky and full winter sunlight which really makes the colours shine out - note the strong shadow on the frame bottom.

As to the 4 hours - I guess you could say that I'm at my best when working under pressure and maybe showing off a little - LOL!

[Jim McDonald]

If you do that kind of work coming up from the sick--I can't wait to see you feeling better!

Very nice piece Jim and one anyone would be thrill to display. You are extremely talented my south of the border friend.

[marshall]

Jim : If this is some of your sick work , I'm going to hold on to my socks when I see your well work !!! Marshall

[Forester21]

Nice job - it looks great!
T

[minowevie]

Jim this project is just perfect. the colors are charming, and the,cutting, and,sanding. very nice indeed. your friend Evie

[jim_mex]

@ Jim, Marshall, Theresa & Evie - Thanks again folks.

Judging from all these kind comments it just goes to show that sometimes the simple things can give the most pleasure.

Again, I have to give credit for Patrick Spieldman and his designer wife for this one. I just copied it, so the design and colour choice goes down to them. I do think though that the use of washed acrylics on lighter grained wood gives a fantastic effect and is worth pursuing. Also, despite a few challenges, I'm finding that I'm now happier working with harder woods and as a knock on effect I seem to be able to cut them much more precisely.

My continuing wish is that newcomers to scrolling are encouraged by this type of work and motivated to try something new and not just think that its beyond them simply because it looks very good.

Once again this project included a couple of firsts for me and is yet another step forward in the learning curve but strangely enough I found it really easy do accomplish compared with a couple of my more recent imaginative ventures. It's curious how things sometime turn out ....