Hi everyone, I just wanted to say hi and introduce myself. I'm Jeremy Gilleland, I'm 31 an Air Force veteran and new to scrolling. I knew the basics of scrolling from spending many high school days hanging out with my best friend in his grandpas wood shop (he had a small business scrolling) but as I've already found out watching someone scroll just doesn't teach the lessons that hands on experience does! I've only been scrolling for a few weeks on an old dremel 1680 that vibrates like a washing machine with an unbalanced load (yes it has the metal stand and weighed down). My wife bought it used for $40 to get me started and after reading some advice in these forums and watching Steve's videos on YouTube I decided to jump headlong in to work!
Me being stubborn and not wanting to do something easy and simple for a starter project I downloaded the plans for the trail of tears Indian feather and got to work, I used some 3/4" pine that I had in my shop and broke 2 blades in the process! After nearly 2 hours of fighting the bucking bronco that is my scroll saw I had my first completed project! I sanded it smooth and stained it in a red mahogany stain, I was happy that it had turned out so beautiful! I took it with me to the VFW here in town and someone offered me $20 for it!
Naturally I had to sell it and now I have orders for more! I've already made the wolf in the feather and the eagle in the feather and the orders keep coming! I'm already trying to sell a gun to finance me a new Excalibur ex21! I'm excited about the work I'm doing and there's so many projects I can't wait to try, my current project is an anniversary gift for some friends on their 10th anniversary tomorrow(yes they got married on Halloween!) It has been a lot of work so far with 200 interior cuts but I think its something they will always appreciate since I'm adding a black backer and framing it for them as well.
Okay well I think I've ran long in my post but that's a good run down of where I'm at and how I'm doing! Hope to learn a lot more from everyone here!