BEGINNINGS - HOW DAVE GOT STARTED

    I think we can safely say that Dave has finally found a hobby he can enjoy - Scrollsaw Work- which one day may just earn him a small income.  So far he is taking great satisfaction in the pieces he has made and has received favorable comments on his ideas thus far...  
    The whole thing got started in late 2008.  Dave tried his hand at creating a Wooden Luminary he found in a magazine, using the RotoZip tool that he had purchased earlier in the year for creating decorative work for our fireplace surround.  His first attempts at cutting out the design required some modification to at least one of the panels on the pattern.  
    Our son Steve, tried his father's RotoZip while here in December 2008, but felt Dave could do far better if he had a scrollsaw.  Steve, who is a high quality Scrollsaw Artist, suggested that it was probably time for his father to move up to the Scrollsaw as his tool of choice, in order to refine his pieces.  
     In August 2009, after much thought on the idea over several months, Dave finally purchased a Hitachi Scrollsaw, to further an interest started during the winter months - the creation of interesting Luminaries. 

         

    Though he had owned his Scrollsaw for only a few weeks, he launched into a project which started out as a commission piece, involving Lighthouses, which he later gave to the recipient.  In the left photo above he is working on the panel shown in the center photo.  On another panel shown in the right photo, he is adding wood burning details to give the piece visual interest in the daylight hours.  After he finished the wood burning accents, Dave elected to add some color to the panels for this project, with wide felt tip pens.  Both the wood burning and felt tip pen coloration are some of the new things he tried out right off the bat.  You can see the results in the Lighthouse Luminary shown in the finished Lighthouse Luminary pictured mid way down on the 2009 ARTWORK COLLECTION. page.
     Throughout 2009, he not only created other Luminaries, but expanded into other types of Scrollsaw Work, including small cutouts, plaques, and fretwork type projects.  These can be viewed at the bottom of the 2009 Artwork Collection page and on the page for Original Designs
     During all of 2010, Dave was very busy creating new works. 
He also decided his Artwork needed a name attached, and thought THE DEADWOOD SHOP might be appropriate.   Several of his Pieces have been made as gifts for family and close friends but not all of them.  Some Dave is willing to sell, and these can be linked to from the Sales Inventory Index Page.  He is also open to Commission Requests at most times.   Currently, the best way to view the current year's volume of Artwork is to go to Dave's Sectional Entrance Page, The Deadwood Shop Home Page, and link to the various Galleries listed at the bottom of that Page for earlier works... 
     As time goes by, each new project gets more diverse and often more complicated as the months pass.  Those changes are reflected in each new completed piece, first posted on the Deadwood Home Page, and subsequently moved to various other Group Pages shortly there after.  Many times Dave goes "outside the box" - beyond just cutting out a pattern - to create uniquely one of a kind items.  He has taken to adding paint color highlights to many of his works, sometimes a bit of wood burning lines, or used his flexible shaft tool to do a bit of carving on the surface to give a piece more "depth".  Possibilities become endless for pattern change ups...

UPDATED January 24, 2012