Arrow of Light Neckerchief Slides

[Scrollsawer]

As the Webelos II Den Leader for my twins' Den, I am getting my boys ready to bridge over to Boy Scouts at the end of the month. I had some time to kill before the 'big game' today, so I thought I'd tinker around with some left over basswood to see if I could mock up some concept 'Arrow of Light' neckerchief slides for my boys. I definitely need a better type of wood, and a need a higher TPi blade for the intricate cuts needed in a small space. But overall, I'd say this could work. Would spray paint the arrow bright yellow, the border bright blue, and I'd glue it to a laminate backing (painted dark blue).



I'm not much of a fretwork guy, and these neckerchief slides just need to look good from 2-3 feet away, so they don't need to be perfect. I'm cautiously optimistic I can make these as a nice touch for our Blue & Gold for my boys.

Scrollsawer

[birddog]

Nice! How long does it take to cut one of those out? Looks pretty detailed.

birddog

[Scrollsawer]

It takes about 30 minutes per piece. Most of the time is spent trying not to cut what shouldn't be cut, and taking lots of deep breaths between cuts so I don't make a mistake. There's some wood glue fixes evident in the above pic., but since the pieces are being painted, it's not a problem.

[whodathunkit]

Scrollsawer, I know I'm way late on seeing this topic.
And your handy fretwork on the Arrow of Light Neckerchief Slides.

From the photos seen on the fretwork..
And all the starter holes drilled.. to me it looks like your cutting these out one at a time.
In 30 min and you said it is basswood and you need better wood.. & a higher TPI blade.

Very nice work for cutting them out one at a time if you are.
Did not say if you were stack cutting them or not! (How thick are they?)

Higher # blades are for thicker stock & the lower # blades are for thin stock and tight corners.
The fewer the TPI the faster the cut & usually the rougher the cut.

Skip tooth blades cut fastest, Reg tooth blades cut slowest , Double tooth blades are in the middle.
Reverse tooth blades give a splinter free bottom cut but cause the wood to jump & hop around more
so you have to use more hold down pressure.

Anyhow very nice fretwork on the neckerchief slides.

[Scrollsawer]

Whoda, sorry for the delayed reply. I have only now logged in, for the first time in about a year. I don't recall what type of blade I used, but they were done one at a time (no stack cutting). I do recall that I tried spiral blades, but couldn't maintain enough control to make those work for me. I did have to drill a lot of tiny pilot holes to get the blade in, and that did take a lot of time.

Thanks,

Scrollsawer

[whodathunkit]

The spiral blades are even hard for me
to control the cuts with.
I know what you are saying!

Welcome back Scrollsawer!


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