DoJo: I think a couple of pieces of that hobby foam that comes in bright colors, stacked and glued to make up a bit of thickness, then cut out in the shape you want, would do the trick as far as the mats are concerned. Also, a few bits of wood glued together would easily become the kick/blocking "dummy" used commonly by wing-chun practitioners (Bruce Lee had one). Also, the 'bo', a long staff slightly tapered from the middle towards both ends, the nunchaku (commonly butchered as "numchucks"), and the practice sword are made of wood. Other practice swords are made of rattan strips bound together with leather. There is always the usual large punching bag, and thick foam pads against the wall for punching and kicking. And I'm sure that you can find the logo for any particular 'brand' of martial art, plus any pictures of what I've mentioned so far in Black Belt magazine. Sounds like a great project...it's bringing back some very fond memories for me!

Dave Pierce

DoJo's: In my son's Dojo, there were belts of all of the level colors on the wall, above and around the almost full wall mirror. There were also certificates hanging showing the accomplishments and instruction of the Sensi. There was also a small office in the front and a small changing room in the rear. I believe in your original post, you mentioned needing mats, like in gymnastics. Well, one of my daughters was a gymnastics coach (she was one of those who could teach others to make their bodies do what hers wouldn't) The dojo mats and gymnastic mats are different. The craft foam used as is would be good for the dojo mat, where the gymnastic mats are covered with a heavy, usually gray canvas.

Mary Lou in Portage, IN

Pirates: To anyone looking for pirate information. I suggest looking at a copy of Eyewitness Books...Pirate by Richard Platt. It is mainly a picture/photo book with any and every thing you could want on the pirate subject... clothing, movies (with posters) , food, maps, boats, etc. etc. Eyewitness Books are a great pictorial resource for many subjects....books, buildings, ancient Egypt, arms and armor, castles,....just to mention a few. As they state 'Like a mini-museum between the covers of a book' As a bonus the back cover has in-scale colored pics of 66 of their books. I believe B & N and Amazon carry these books ..(I have purchased quite a few at COSTCO for a good price) but do check at your local library too. Check them out......I think you will find them very useful.

Pirates: Kathy in PA suggested that the person doing this project should visit my site for bar and pub and some other items (thanks for thinking of me). I started thinking and remembered that I have some neat old fashioned pewter ware from Tony Knott. I have jugs and mugs and eating utensils etc. http://www.spminiatures.com/medievaluten2.html

Carol

Scroll Saw: I spent a bit of dough and am very glad I did. I bought the 20 inch; DeWalt scroll saw. All of the adjustments on this great tool are easy, everything is right in front of you and at your fingertips (speed and blade tension). Vibration is practically non-existent. And of course it comes with the standard dust blower. Easy to use? Ask any of my students from Castine a couple of years ago...they all loved using it. And unlike the older model of Dremel, it will cut through an inch of material with ease...the old one balked at 1/4 inch. That's a real plus if you wish to stack several pieces in order to cut them all out at once, so they are all the same shape and size.

Dave Pierce

Scroll Saws: We have four at the moment! Pam and I like our DeWalt the best. It is heavy, vibration free, the blades are easy to change and the controls are convenient. It is also twice as expensive as all the others except Hegner. Hegner is the high end about three times the cost of the DeWalt and six times the cost of the others. I like the Delta two speed for everything except it is fairly heavy to carry to classes and the controls are inconvenient. It is durable and the least expensive. We got a Sears Craftsman for doing classes because it is a little more portable, lighter, than the others. Pam likes it fine for a lower end saw. Although we have not used it The Dremel is a little pricey and we have never been happy of the quality of their other machines. Make sure it takes plain end blades, that the blades are reasonably easy to change, the controls are convenient and that there isn't too much vibration when it is running at high speed. Someone will post saying no scroll saws are good for miniatures and that they use a jewelers saw for everything. Scroll saws are very useful for many things. It depends on what kind of work, the blade, the auxiliary table, speed and the blade tracking and vibration of the machine.

BTW we have one two speed Delta and one large variable speed Delta we never use anymore. I believe the variable speed Delta we have available is the model that Bonnie Gibson mentioned. Contact me privately. We don't have scroll saws in our machinery line, just table saws, thickness sanders, lathes and milling machines.

Pete

Scroll Saws: For miniatures, the best thing that you can do is find a reasonably smooth and flat piece of plywood. Drill a small hole to put the blade through, and double-face-tape it to the table of your scroll saw. You can also use acrylic sheet - nice and slippery. The insert holes are almost always too big to support miniature work, and your parts will fall through the hole without some sort of auxiliary table. If you are considering a new purchase, I look for several things. I want the on-off switch in the front. I saw a couple of models where you had to reach across to the back of the saw to turn it off. Not a good design, for any machine, for obvious safety reasons. Secondly, I want a machine that will accept plain end blades. There is not enough choice in pin end blades in the finer sizes, and they are harder to find. Third, I want the blade changing mechanism to be relatively easy. You can try this out in the store, even if they won't let you turn it on. Blades. Plain-end type blades come in more small sizes and in greater variety. They are readily available through mail order sources. You can get a pretty decent starter assortment at Sears - this is worthwhile if you are just starting out and don't know exactly what you will be needing. For woodworking, the general rule of thumb is to keep 3 teeth in the wood. This is enough to cut efficiently and to allow the sawdust to be cleared out of the cut. I like to have an assortment ranging from 2/0 to about 7, depending on the thickness of the wood and how tight my turns need to be. Blade breakage. It happens. There is a reason that they are regularly sold by the dozens. Jewelers blades - for metal cutting - are often sold by the gross!

And, they can get dull. Don't beat yourself up - just change the blade. Check your tension while you're at it. I always do some sort of a warm-up piece, before I go on to the main event. A nice practice piece is to use some 1/8 inch plywood and trace around your cookie cutters. Later you, or the grandchildren, can paint them and make some nice holiday ornaments. Above all, have fun.

Pam

Scroll Saws: Great post telling about the different types of scroll saws, Pam and Pete... I have to ditto all you say on what to look for in a scroll saw. Having different speeds (more than just two is helpful) can make all the difference if you cut anything other than wood. I have used mine to cut complicated shapes from metal, plastic and other stranger things such as antler. (BTW, I do have the large, heavy, variable speed model by Rockwell/Delta - it was horrendously expensive at the time but the best that was available that I could find at the time! This saw is a workhorse and it works as well today as it did the day I got it.) I used to make thousands and thousands of Country Charm Cutouts doing business under the name of Minicrafts- I would stack wood 6-8 layers thick and cut out hundreds of little chickens, sheep, cats, you name it, in a few hours (Some of you may even own some of my minis if you were active in the 80's.... if you have any little flat animals or pull toys, look at the bottom and see if my name is there...!) It is amazing how much easier a job is when you have a good tool to work with.

Bonnie Gibson - Tucson, Arizona

Scroll Saws: That was a very good article about scroll saws. I must however rise up in defense of the Dremel scroll saw which got short shrift in the article. This is not intended to diminish the original article because I thought it was quite good. I just want to fill in the missing data about the excellent Dremel entry into the field. I have a model 1680 Dremel saw which gets hard use and has most of the desirable features cited in the article. In the first place, I do not consider it pricey. Its suggested list price is $220 and can be purchased at less that $200 in stores such as Lowes. Admittedly, it has a bit of vibration, as do any of the saws with a long upper arm. At 40 lbs., it is heavy enough to avoid waltzing around the table and a lot of the vibration can be eliminated with a good carpet pad underneath as well as bolting it down on a substantial table. The latter is not essential. I use my saw in craft demos and must carry it about from one place to another and use it on any table supplied by the sponsoring organization, some of which would make better springboards than tables. Its good features include the up front, up top controls. A good light is included for visibility. The speed is infinitely controlled from 500 spm to 1500 spm. It has a blower that really blows well and removes sawdust from the kurf. The quick blade tension release is at the back of the upper arm and helps retain your desired tension after a blade change. The saw accepts pinned and pinless blades without an adapter and the blade clamps are big wing bolts requiring no tools for a change. Excellent access to the lower blade clamp helps make the change easy and can be further improved by tilting the table. The table tilts 45 deg. each direction and positive detents are at each of the most common settings. It has a 3/4 inch stroke and can take up to 2 inch material at 90 deg, 1 inch material at 45 deg. It accepts all standard scroll saw blades and some special blades are available from Dremel. Dremel calls this the saw the user designed and I believe it. As you might have surmised, I like the saw. Since I do miniatures, I also use a auxiliary table to prevent the little pieces from falling through the slot provided to allow table tilt. I just use a small sheet of door skin for the aux. table. Door skin is a nice 1/8" thick plywood available cheaply at most lumber yards in 3' X 7' sheets and great for many miniature projects. I simply place a sized piece of wood on the table and cut into the center. I usually use a few pieces of masking tape to hold the aux. table in place. The slot made by the saw does not hurt the utility of the aux. table and it can be easily removed if I want to tilt the table. I keep a chunk of paraffin to lubricate the blades when I am cutting metal. When cutting plastic, I use the slowest speed and leave the protective paper on while I cut. If the plastic has no protective paper, I add masking tape top and bottom to provide a bit of lubrication to reduce heat and the associated healing of the plastic behind the blade. Also, when I want to cut a number of identical pieces, I stack up layers of wood and use double sticky carpet tape to hold them together. After the cut, it is simple to separate the items with a thin blade knife. I hope this fills out the Dremel story for the original article.

Dave

Breaking Jeweler's Saw Blades: I do my cutting on a V-block which I clamp to my workbench (or kitchen counter-top, my preferred workspace for doing fretwork). The V-block is a piece of 3/8 or ½ inch plywood, with a V cut into it. It doesn't have to be very big - mine is only about five inches square; the V is perhaps an inch to one and a half inches deep into the board by about 1/2 inch wide at the widest part. I make sure that my cutting is as close as possible to the point of the V. This gives the wood I am cutting maximum support and reduces the wood's vibration - the greatest cause of snapping a blade. When the wood vibrates, it can bind on the blade. As you pull the saw to deal with the binding, invariably you'll hear "Ping!" and know you've broken another blade! I always try to let the saw do the cutting, and don't push on the blade. I try to make sure I saw as close to straight up and down as possible, too, turning the wood as I cut rather than trying to turn the blade.

George Held