Greetings from land of ice and snow.

[Bob H]

An intarsia addict from a small city (Elliot Lake) in Ontario, Canada.
Been enjoying intarsia and other scrolling for almost 6 years now.I thought I would introduce myself with a picture of one of my latest bits.

And if I can encourage others to take up the hobby I would be happy to help.

I do not use paint or stain. I only use the natural colours of the wood. Exotic or domestic. Of course Exotic to a Canadian could mean an Australian tree, and to you, Exotic might be Western Red Cedar from the west coast of North America.
In this instance I have used Black Walnut,Basswood,Western Red Cedar,Ebony, Pine, and a small bit of Paduak.
Regards, Bob.
http://www.vianet.ca/~rhelman/indian.jpg

[oges]

Very nice work Bob. I am working on a segmentation project at the moment and hoping to work my way to intarsia from that.

[Tikki]

http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/23/23_3_36.gif (http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb001_ZNxdm88547US) Hi Bob, and a big welcome to the land of sunshine and gum trees (amongst other things). That is seriously SUPER intarsia! What sort of scrollsaw do you have, and what tools do you use to do your shaping? Looks like some carving in there too. Man of many talents! Look forward to seeing more of your work on this forum.
Regards
Tikki

[AlexS]

Nice first post Bob. Good range of colours and I like the carving too.

[Wongo]

Hi Bob,

Welcome and very impressive work.

[Bob H]

Thanks for the warm welcome. I am happy to contribute and maybe encourage others to take up the sport.

Tikki, This is my arsenal. I don't do any carving in the traditional sense. I might use an Exacto blade for a single very small accent, but rely on
powered
http://www.vianet.ca/~rhelman/tools2.jpg

sanding tools almost exclusively. My main shaping device is the rigid drum sander(s). Stating with the 1 1/2" X 1 1/2" one, with a coarse sandpaper sleeve. Then on to other sizes as needed. The other tools are all used for special effects and/or finer sanding towards final finishing. The item in bottom right is a flex-shaft, chucked onto the end of a motor taken from a old belt sander.
I hold the piece with my right hand and move either the "drum" and/or the piece, varying the pressure as required. For very small pieces and to save my fingers, I might hot melt glue the bit to scrap or on occasion, pre-drill and drive a screw in to the back. The "burrs", are again for special effects as is the 5" concrete cutting disc. The hi-speed (Dremel type) tool is for same purposes on smaller detail.
My Scroll Saw is a DeWalt 788.
Ben rambling on a bit but I hope this helps.
Bob

[Tikki]

Hi Bob

Don't see any sandpaper sheets there - do you hand sand at all? And what do you think of Fred's bow sander? Haven't used mine on a project yet, but think it would be helpful with larger pieces in lieu of final hand sanding.
Thanks for your explanations - good to see what others use.
Regards
Tikki

[Bob H]

Tikki... No,I don't do any hand sanding.
I will on occaision, use a small orbital sander if I do not want a pronounced division between relatively flat pieces that I want to blend together.

Bow Sanders.
I feel that they (and inflatable drum sanders) are most suited for soft and uniform rounding-over . That I can achieve ( if I ever need to) by simply easing off on the pressure of my various implements.
Where I think they are limited is in their ability to achieve real shaping & contouring designed to impart realism.
Perhaps the Bow sander could, by substituting various widths and grits, be used to get more pronounced detail.

But I can see where they could provide relief from hand sanding and add speed as well.

I don't own one and my opinion has been formed by looking at the finished products of those who promote/sell the Bow saw.

This of course is strictly my own opinion.

As with all things"artsy", you use the tools you have/need to achieve the effect you want and damn the torpedos!
But here is a sample of both the blending (owl body) and contouring (leaves) as well as a bit of grooving. And I used a flat tip screwdriver blade to mark the X's for the prickly bits.http://www.vianet.ca/~rhelman/powl.jpg


Wood: Fruit= Western Red Cedar, Leaves =Poplar, Owl=Sycamore, Basswood, Pau Amorella and Ebony