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View File Tree of Life This file is donated by @TJ Brown. A finished tree of life is seen below, enjoy! Submitter TJ Brown Submitted 01/01/2024 Category Scroll Saw Patterns
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So this may be a long one, and if posted in the wrong forum, feel free to relocate. My life has been very busy for the last year. I’m still working on one set of friends addition (end is in sight, but the garage hasn’t even been framed yet, I do the electrical). I went on vacation as of 3:00 pm yesterday, and will be changing the electrical service for another friend this week. Our son is engaged, they’ve bought a house, and I have projects going on over there. I average 48-50 hours a week at work. My only female cousin, and also only one older than me, passed away the first week of June from ALS. My kid brother committed suicide August last year. I am still mad at him for that, and obviously still coming to terms with it. I did not post this trolling for sympathies, or condolences, but it has a bearing on the story. My Mom passed away on Easter of 2014, and my sister was the executor. My Father’s Mother had collected Hummels, and my sister had not gotten to dividing them up among us, before my brother’s death. This really bothered her, and she was afraid that if she didn’t divide them up soon, another of us would be gone. So on Palm Sunday this year my other brother, and myself, met at my sisters house and we divided up the Hummels. They are porcelain/ceramic figurines of children, made in Germany. Around 1968 my Mom’s dad (my grandfather) made 4 mangers, and bought 4 nativity sets. He kept one, and gave one to each of his children. My sister got my grandparents manger and I got my parents manger. There were roughly 60 Hummels, and there was a nativity set. My sister and I agreed to give Paul the nativity set, and I would build him a manger, before Christmas (see there is something dealing with WW’ing here ). When I got home from my sisters house that Palm Sunday, I was putting the Hummels away. I happened to glimpse into one of them, which was a bank, and saw a piece of paper. The key to the bank was taped to the bottom of it. It was a gift to my Dad’s Mom, from my parents, Christmas of 1957. I know this because my grandmother wrote it on the bottom of the Hummel, in pen. (Probably not adding to it’s value). So I opened the bank, and the piece of paper inside was my Father’s first grade picture, Dec 20, 1937 (pictures will follow). It was kinda like Dad saying hi, from the beyond. So today I went down to the basement and looked at my manger, and started cutting pieces of 1/4 Baltic birch for the new manger. I have a ShopSmith so I had to set everything up, and then disassemble and put away, clean up, so the Missus can use the basement. I also did a couple of loads of laundry while I was down there. I GOT TO SMELL SAWDUST! Now this is gonna be a box with a slanted top, pretty simple, nothing special. But for me this is awesome, I even got to use my tapering jig (store bought) for the first time. I will post some pictures of the process as it happens, and even if my friends projects don’t get done on time, or if I don’t work all the OT my job may demand, I’m gonna get my brother’s manger done in time. One of my reasons for posting this is so that if there are any other members here like me, just beginners, or still learning, it’s ok. The regular posters here are very talented, and their work is beautiful, and I suspect that may intimidate some of us from posting (There is a very high bar here), so I’ll happily be a representative for the newbie’s, still learning, 2 left handed, among the forum. One of the reasons that this is my single favorite forum is the overwhelming friendliness, and helpfulness of the members. There is none of the condensension, and snide remarks, that I have seen from the experts (self nominated) at some other sites (and I’m not referring necessarily about woodworking forums). So I stopped working on the project while I’m contemplating how I’m gonna do the joinery. This is NOT a request for help or advice, I wanna think about this, and come up with my own ideas, not because of pride, but because this is how I learn best. I had a great day, just being in the shop, it’s so much fun. I suspect that those here who have decades working in their own shops still get this feeling. I try to remind the old timers on some of my metal detecting sites, how much of a thrill it is for the newbs to just find a quarter, it can be easily forgotten how we all started out. On another note, my Missus’s friend, who has Everett for a son, does not seem inclined to let him come over and learn to use the scroll saw. I have asked, and the look on her face was like I was asking to let him swim in the alligator infested water. I learned, and I had fun, so there’s always that. Sorry for the long, disjointed epic