The Dale C. Maley Family Web Site

My grandkids love playing with my scroll saw puzzles. I found a free pattern for Wanda the fish, which should be about right for the 2 and 3 year old grand kids. I found the free pattern here.

I entered it into Sketchup, so I could 1 pattern to glue on the wood and scroll saw it.........and 1 copy to tell me how to paint it.  I scaled it so it would fit onto a 5.5 inch wide piece of red oak or maple from the big box stores. I chose to make it from 3/4" thick red oak.

I used white Elmer's glue to glue the paper pattern onto the 3/4" thick red oak..........then scroll sawed out the pieces.  I sanded the pieces on the drill press using a drum sander with 220 grit sand paper.  I then used a wet dishrag and water to remove the paper pattern and glue.......then dried the pieces in the over at 120F.

I put 2 coats of paint.  I did not paint the back of the pieces, because it makes it too confusing for the kids to put it together........so I sealed them with Linseed oil.

The pattern has a white circle above the fish eye, but when I painted it........it just did not look like, so I eliminated the white spot and just went with a black eye.

This was an easy one to make.  Red oak worked ok as the wood for the puzzle.  The white eye looked neat in the pattern, but in reality I had to eliminate it because it did not look right in the painted condition.