Scroll Saw Blog

This morning I glued up the “Blois Goblet”. This is another pattern from Pedro of www.finescrollsaw.com. At the time of this writing, the link to this pattern is here.The pattern came as a colour printout on 3 sheets of A4 size paper. After scanning the pages in, I greyed in the holes. Although on this pattern it’s not hard to figure out where the fretwork holes are (and more specifically where NOT to drill an entry hole!), I like to put a grey fill just to make the drilling go quicker–it’s obvious where to drill now! Some folks don’t like the fills, and as I scan patterns in I would rather not have the patterns pre-grayed. Another reason I prefer the patterns themselves NOT to be pre-filled is on some patterns I’ll use different colours for different reasons. When you scan in a filled area, it can be difficult to select all the grey pixels. Also, if you want a black-and-white scan (to save memory or for sharper scans) it’s better to just have lines.

Anyway, after I filled the holes, I drew boxes around the individual pattern elements to determine the best size for cutting blanks. (In case you’re curious, you can cut this pattern with 44” of 6-1/2” wide wood and 42” of 4” wide wood, all 1/4″ thick.) I then put any notes, including dimensions of the blanks, in text notes. I did all these mark-ups in CorelDraw 12.

Two of the three pages can be easily printed on 8-1/2”x11” letter-sized paper; the middle page with the bowl patterns won’t quite fit. If the two pattern elements were about 1/8” closer they might fit. Anyway, I cropped out each element individually and moved them to their own page.

To cut out the pattern you’ll need an extra copy of the leg pattern–unless you’re able to cut 6 pieces of 1/4″ wood at the same time! The other elements you should be able to get by with one each.

The bowl is made of 6 wedge-like pieces, 3 each of 2 different patterns, making them easy to stack cut without repetition. There are 6 legs, so they required 2 stacks of the same pattern. With the 3/4″ thick stack, it’s easy to control the blade and get sharp points/corners. The only tricky cut is a small corner at the middle-top of the non-flower wedge (it’s obvious if you look at the pattern). The good news is if you flub the cut, nobody will notice. For this one I used canarywood for most of the parts, with only the bowl bottom made from bloodwood.

I’m getting a little ahead of myself on the wedges. Before I did the fretwork, I cut all 6 wedge blanks and stacked them in groups of 3. After applying the pattern and tape, I roughed out the sides with a bandsaw, and cleaned up the edges with the 6×48 sander set at 0 degrees. I then separated the stacks, leaving the pattern on the top wedge. The wedges have beveled edges, so after adjusting the sander to the appropriate angle, I just sanded them with a 100 or 120 grit belt. I then re-stacked the wedges (with the patterned wedge on top, of course!) and re-taped them. Then it’s off to the drill press for entry holes and thence to the Excalibur EX-21 scrollsaw.

I didn’t do anything special to the legs, just stacked them in 2 stacks of 3 blanks and cut out the fretwork. There are 2 veining-like cuts, though its not obvious as to if they are veining cuts or narrow fret cuts. I think Pedro suggests a spiral in this situation. I don’t do spirals, so I just drilled a small entry hole & used a #1 Pegas blade to enlarge the hole and make it shaped right for a #5 Pegas blade. I then cut it like a normal (if very narrow) fret hole. One pass down, then another pass on the other side. There was nothing but sawdust left.

The plate between the bowl and legs was the only tedious part. I didn’t stack-cut it, so it was only 1/4″ thick. There are a lot of identical cuts (24 knobs & 6 corners if I remember right), so it was tedious and hard-to-control. The next time I’ll stack-cut, even if I have to throw away an extra piece. Tabs in the legs and bowl both fit in the plate, and it holds the entire piece together. I had to enlarge two of the holes for the bowl, & none for the legs. Me and tabs don’t go together well (that’s a fault of my cutting, not the pattern), so I was pleased that it went together as well as it did.

After the bowl and legs are together, there is another piece that fits inside the bowl bottom to hide the tabs/slots. I cut this from a scrap of bloodwood. Rough cuts were done by bandsaw, final edges done on the sander followed by the bevel cuts on the sander.

The canarywood was sanded with the 6×48 belt sander to 300 grit and finished with a boiled linseed oil/mineral spirits 50/50 mix. The bloodwood doesn’t do well with the oil, so it got a couple coats of glossy Deft laquer. Everything was glued with Arleens.

Overall, it took about one full day to make this goblet. This doesn’t include time waiting for glue to dry & oil to cure. Before I made this one I practices on a smaller one (62.5%) out of some scrap cherry. The cherry cut much faster than the canarywood, and only took about 4 hours to complete.

Below are some pictures of the finished goblet. Small images are embedded in this page; I’ve included links to larger images (approx 1024 pixels wide/200Kb)

This first picture is a side view of the goblet. It’s about 12-1/2” wide at the bowl, and 10-1/2” tall.

Full size image is here.

The next is looking down at a slight angle. You can start to see the bloodwood bottom of the bowl.

Full size image is here.

Now we are looking straight down from above. You can see how the two wedge patterns alternate

Full size image is here.

Finally, here is a close-up of the wedge pattern

Full size image is here.

Below is a picture of a smaller version of the goblet.  I reduced the pattern size to 62.5%; this allows me to use scrap pieces and significantly reduce the amount of wood needed.  One problem with the smaller version is the legs are rather fragile.  I’ve modified the plan slightly to increase the strength while maintaining the spirit of Pedro’s plan.  This one is a mixture of maple and walnut; this has proven a popular combination for other projects.

Back to the Scrollsaw Blog