My scroll saw was still sitting out from my last project and I didn't want to have to find a place to stash it since there isn't really room in my workshop. So I thought I'd better just use it for a while longer. I had come across this rose design by virtue of having a video about it pop up as a YouTube suggestion (Acutabove Woodworking). I liked its nice 3-D aspect so it seemed like a fine candidate for storage procrastination. As mentioned on the main page, I didn't really have a specific application for the rose and neither myself nor Sue came up with anything we particularly liked but I thought it would be interesting to make anyway.

I checked for suitable rose drawings on-line but didn't see anything better than the one that had been found by the maker of the video so I thought I'd use that one as well.

I started with a suitably-sized piece of Cherry that was about an inch thick. The plan was to add a thin base after the rose was done, so I cut off about 1/8" for that purpose. Using the cut-off piece would ensure a matching grain and make the separate base piece less obvious.

I printed out a full-sized pattern and just stuck it to the wood using a glue stick.

The rose would be cut out starting at the center, so a hole was needed to stick the blade through. The #5 blade I planned to use needed a hole of around 0.05" (yes, it is a small blade) so I drilled one smack dab in the middle of the blossom using the Dremel.

I started at the center and cut out pieces one by one.

This shows me removing the first (and consequently smallest) piece of the rose.

I carried on cutting out and removing pieces and by the time of this shot I've done the first half-dozen or so.

The pieces were set onto another pattern sheet to keep track of them.

That separate bundle is a group of the smallest center pieces wired together since they didn't stand well on their own.

With all 26 pieces cut out, they were relocated to the original blank to keep everything together.

The pencil lines had been added to aid in post-cutting realignment but they turned out to not really be needed.

Then it was time to add the contour to the rose petals. That mostly meant rounded corners, a curved inner surface and a slightly hollowed outer surface. Any remnants of the pattern paper were also sanded off.

My most-ancient Dremel with a sanding drum was used for most of the shaping.

The curves were smoothed using 120-grit sandpaper strips, followed by 220-grit strips.

I used this clamp setup to bring the work to a convenient height. It was right beside the Dremel as they shared a common dust collector duct.

This shot shows the first pass of the shaping. I did a bit more refinement before calling it done.

The pieces didn't fit back together perfectly due to the narrow slots cut out by the blade. The blade kerf was only about 0.018" but some of the petal geometry prevented just moving everything closer. That resulted in a couple gaps but they're not obvious in the finished rose.

Just like the cutting procedure, the gluing was approached a piece at a time from the center.

In this photo I'm adding glue to one of the middle-most pieces.

The rose was built up with glued-on petals from the center outward, again done on a pattern to guide placement of the pieces.

All glued.

Then back to the thin slab that was cut off the blank way back at the beginning:

The rose shape was marked on the wood and it was cut out larger to make alignment easier.

The rose (after sanding off the paper bits stuck to the bottom from the gluing process) was then glued to the base.

That thicker piece of wood on the bottom is just there to keep things flat.

Once the glue was dry, the rose got some outside shaping to smooth off the bottom and give the sides a bit of a taper.

And that was it for the rose.

I still didn't have a particular application in mind for the rose but it was satisfying to make so I thought I might do a couple more.

For the new ones I selected wood that was a bit closer to rose color (well, red rose anyway).

I started on the Padauk rose first. In this shot I've already cut out the first half-dozen or so pieces.

Unfortunately the first tiny piece that was cut out got sucked up by the dust collection system. I immediately turned it off and went to check the half-full collection bin

I carefully removed the dust collector bin to avoid disturbing the lay of the dust. Upon inspection I failed to spot the piece so I hoped that it was still stuck somewhere in the system.

I emptied and cleaned out the bin, reinstalled it and then tried to get any hung-up pieces through; the system was turned on again and I opened other ports and banged things around a bit.

Fortunately when I rechecked, my little reddish-coloured piece had shown up - in the middle of the shot here. I took some measures to prevent a repeat of the situation and carried on with the cutting.

As before, the cut pieces were stacked in place on another plan as they came off the saw.

Where were we? Ah yes - the Padauk rose.

Here it is with the pieces cut out and shaped, ready for gluing.

Following the same procedure as the Cherry version, the pieces were glued, a thin base was added and the sides were tapered - with the latter process happening here on the spindle sander.

It is the rare project that can be completed without hand sanding, and this wasn't one of them.

The Padauk sanding generated unusual bright-orange sawdust.

That's the Padauk rose completed.

Last up was the Aromatic Cedar rose.

In this shot the sawing is about to begin.

And in this shot the sawing is all done.

The roses are nominally similar but the exact design of the petals was tweaked slightly differently in each rose for better look or fit, although the differences are pretty subtle.

In addition, the last two roses were given a bit more "texture" by shortening the petals near the periphery.

For the latter change, I used the disc sander to reduce the petal height by as much as 1/10" prior to the shaping stage.

This shows the completed Cedar rose.

As to the final disposition, the rose shapes are somewhat abstract and actually incorporate some perspective so I didn't think giving them stems and leaves in any manner would really work.

I ultimately settled on arranging the roses on a mounting plate. For simplicity it was just an ellipse with curved edges, made from the almost-white Aspen wood for good contrast (covered in paper here, so looking totally white).

In this shot I'm smoothing off the edges after cutting out the ellipse shape.

A bit of edge rounding, a bit of sanding and the plate was complete.

Then the roses were simply glued into place.

The completed piece, just needing a finish.

I used Danish Oil for the finish, using a brush with fine bristles to apply it.

The Cherry coloured up nicely while the Cedar and Padauk roses mostly got darker.

This is a hang-on-the-wall piece so I needed to come up with a suitable hanging method. I decided on a brass hanger, similar to one I'd made years ago for a custom frame.

I started with this small piece of 0.01" brass.

The brass received a slot, a couple of countersunk holes for mounting and a top section bent out to engage a wall hook.

A pair of #3 brass screws were used to fasten the hook to the back of the plate.

Done