The first cut is the deepest
So Saturday was sawing day, about a week later than I’d intended. Secretly I feared that I was going to put it off indefinitely, but I was pleased to prove myself wrong. (Just as an aside, there are a lot of pictures in this post, so I made most of ‘em small. You can see them all bigger by clicking on them, and then choosing “All sizes” at Flickr once there.) Here’s the first piece. I figured I’d try the ones with the longest lines and no internal angles, figuring simpler was better.
The first battle was to determine how tight the blade was supposed to be in the jeweler’s saw. You can see it’s bowed somewhat, but my ability to adjust the tension seems limited since what holds it is in internal and not reachable by me—I just drop it in the slots and turn the screws and hope for the best. These are tiny, thin blades.
Progress!
Woohoo! The first cut! It’s not hard to cut it; it just takes patience. And for the record, shell dust is not really pleasant smelling. However, my exposure to its aroma was minimal, as I was wearing a pretty good dust mask. I’m glad I did; that shit flies everywhere. The MOP seemed to be more dusty than the green abalone, too.
Mistake #1: I had tried to glue the patterns on the shell right up close to the edge to save myself some cutting and to economize on shell usage. But I realized I wasn’t accurate enough in my placement (probably because I was gingerly dealing with the superglue), and ended up putting it NEAR, but not ON the edge. This resulted in my having to trim it up, but so close to the edge, I had very little space to work, to get the blade to bite. So I ended up alternately sawing/chipping off that edge. So I have 2 options to correct this little, yet highly annoying problem 1) much more precise pattern placement, or 2) sticking the pattern right in the middle of the shell, damn the cost. I think I’ll try option 1 first.
These orange springy clamps are a hand workout, but they’re so handy if you can get them placed right so that you don’t end up sawing into them (don’t ask how I know that). It’s like a third hand. Even as it was, I ended up holding the pieces with my left hand quite a bit, and my hands were feeling pretty stiff Sunday because of it. I’m hoping that will improve with practice and conditioning.
I’d cut exactly one of the pieces before the first blade broke. I assume it was a combination of the natural delicacy, poor tension of the blade, and amateur handling, so I got it tighter the next time. In all, I broke 4 blades. The fifth one is still in the saw. I push them until they break, even though at the end they’ve gone dull, and it takes a lot more elbow grease to make it work. But I am my father’s daughter, and I’ll use that blade until I can’t use it no more, dammit! I guess there is a reason they sell them in 12-count packages. I thought a dozen would last me a good long time. Next order I’ll order several dozens.
So here’s the first piece, done.
I left the screwhead in the picture, just so you can get a sense of what the scale of this work is. It’s not a good cut—you can see the wavy lines on top where I kept adjusting the saw en route. And on the bottom you can see a bit of a ledge—that’s the result of my efforts to trim that side because of my poor pattern gluing. But regardless, I don’t think it’s bad for a first effort using a tool and material I’ve never used before. I’ll take it.
Starting piece number 2, but I just want to talk about this bench pin. It’s a bird’s beak. If I were a real woodworker, I would’ve made my own. However, I am a real geek, and found this one at a jewelry-maker’s supply site on the web, with the clamp built in. It also has the small center hole. It quickly became clear to me, especially when I moved to the more complicated and thinner pieces, what an ingenious design this is. You move the piece around for maximum opening and maximum support of the shell, plus it keeps the blade where it’s supposed to be. I used the V and the circle extensively. After one day’s cutting, I’ve gotten my money’s worth on that one. I just need to figure out how to rig up the shop vac to it so that it sucks while I work. My biggest complaint is the noise of the constantly running vac, so I would just stop, clear my field of vision, and go back to sawing. But that leaves the saw hanging sometimes, which puts more stress on those flimsy blades, so I need to come up with something else. 
The second piece is not perfect, but it’s better. Progress is always good.
Mistakes #2 & #3: I realized at this point that I’d neglected to glue a pattern for piece 3 to some shell. So I did so, trying to be more precise in the placement so I wouldn’t have to be trimming thin pieces of shell off. I also think if I had sharper lines for my patterns, I’d do better. The guy whose book I read said so, but “sharp” is so subjective. I’ve got it now.
When I grabbed the other two pieces, and was examining my placement job of the pattern, I discovered that part of it wasn’t even ON the shell. Nice one. So I peeled what I could off, put a new pattern on it, and set those 2 pieces aside to dry while I moved on. 
Next up was the green abalone—thinner pieces with both internal and external angles.
The first one went fine. Mostly I sawed in straight lines, stopping to move the piece and start a new cut as necessary until the cuts met and gave me a clean break.
Mistake #4: I managed to break the second one. I’ll use it anyway. I’ll see how bad it looks once it’s glued in and sanded. 
I finally got all the pieces sawn, and roughed them in over the pattern. Not bad for my first try, I think, and I definitely learned a lot as I went in regards to handling the saw. Learning to use my new tools is the primary focus of these initial “projects,” since this is all new to me.
I decided to follow the directions in the book and glue the pieces on top of a piece of wax paper on top of the pattern and let them sit for the night, in the hopes if doing the routing Sunday. I’m keeping my spare pieces. You never know when they might come in handy.
