Walk into a quiet little country restaurant in Cabot on a Thursday afternoon, and you may be lucky enough to find a group of retirement-aged men gathered around a table talking about their latest woodshop projects.

But don't be fooled by this common scene. This group is quietly revitalizing a craft that had nearly been lost to history.

They are the Blazin' Blades Scrollers of Western Pennsylvania, a recently chartered club that focuses on reviving the art of scroll saw work.

The club meets every other month at Star Grille in Cabot.

The club, which obtained its official charter in January from the Scroll Saw Association of the World based in Illinois, has about a dozen members who come from as far away as New Bethlehem and Monroeville.

The traditional craft was popular from about 1880 to about 1920, said Ernie Lang of Cabot, president of the club. "The Roaring '20s came in and people just wanted to do other things," he said.

During the following decades, the craft all but died out, and nearly lost was the knowledge of how to create some of America's most intricate and stunning pieces of woodworking.

Not until recent years did enthusiasts like Lang emerge with efforts to document antique pieces and bring these lost pieces back to life.Fretwork, as the woodcraft is called, is made on a saw with a "very tiny, thin blade attached to two arms," Lang said. To make a cut, a small hole is drilled in thin wood and the saw blade is threaded through the hole, reattached to the arm, and tensioned.It is because of the dual arms and thin blade that the scroll saw is able to make even the tightest curves and tiniest cuts with ease. "In the very, very small cutouts, we use a drill that is maybe 60/1,000th of an inch," Lang explained.In order to build a fretwork piece, a paper pattern is applied to a thin sheet of wood. Lang said a quarter-inch thickness is standard. Then waste pieces are cut way. The parts are glued together to make the finished work."It looks harder than it actually is," said Bernie McKruit of Cabot. "It's like in first grade when you get to follow the lines. That's what we're doing here."For many of the completed projects these master craftsmen display during club meetings, that translates into thousands and thousands of lines. Most of the members say they never count the number of hours that go into a particular project."When you do something, you can't look at the whole project," McKruit explained. "You get an hour and you cut a few pieces out.

When you get enough pieces, you start gluing. It's not as long as a layman would think," he said, adding the "fortunate thing is that if you make a mistake, no one knows it. They can't tell."McKruit said he started scroll sawing a couple of years ago when lifelong friend Lang got him interested. "I have always worked with wood. I built houses for 20 years. I just build smaller houses now."He said he doesn't have a preferred style or type of project. "If something takes my fancy, I make it. I'm getting into the more challenging things lately."While one of the club's main goals is to document old patterns, another is to pass this craft on to a new generation. Lang teaches the tricks of the trade to some of the club's novice members at his home woodshop.Tammy Cypher of Cabot has been learning the craft for about eight months. "If you have a stressful day at work, it's nice to just sit down in front of the scroll saw. It's relaxing for me," she said.Neither Lang nor Cypher said they ever sell any pieces. In fact, both said they often give away their creations as gifts."Anyone who watches me do this, they want pieces and I end up giving them away," she said. "I haven't made one for myself except a shelf and that's probably the one I'll keep. It's the first one I ever made."Fretwork is a craft that is good for beginning woodworkers because it doesn't take much equipment to get started. "You don't have to have a lot of expensive machinery, all you really need is a scroll saw and a sander and a small drill press or a hand drill," Lang said.But for those who think they might like to give this craft a try, he has a few words of warning. "It's like what they used to say about coal mining," he said. "It gets in your blood. There is something intriguing about it. People who start all say the same thing, that they can't get out of the shop. They can lose hours in the shop."He also noted scroll saw work is relatively safe. "In your other types of woodworking, you have a large circular saw that runs at very high speed. If you touch any part of your body to that saw, you are immediately going to get cut."The scroll saw is not nearly as aggressive. You are always sawing holes mainly inside the wood. Your blade is always trapped, so to speak, inside that hole. It's also not a real powerful saw horsepower-wise. It is a very safe woodworking piece of equipment compared to big saws."In all these years, I've only nicked my finger one time, and it didn't even need a Band-Aid," he added.Still, Lang advises woodworkers to observe basic shop safety rules. "It's like anything. Never operate it when you are fatigued, and use all the same safety rules that you use with anything else."For more information on Blazin' Blades Scrollers of Western Pennsylvania, contact Richard DeFelice at 724-295-3810, or e-mailWoodwrks@connecttime.net.