How To Use A Woodburning Tool
We purchased a woodburning set last year for our teenage son to make some Christmas ornaments and we have used it for many projects since then. There a many different kinds of woodburners available online, in craft stores or at woodworking stores. We started off with a basic set from the craft store. It included the woodburning tool and a few different decorating tips. The basic set is very affordable, but you do have to wait for it to cool before you can remove the tip and switch to a different one. When we found ourselves using the woodburning set more often, we upgraded to a little nicer equipment.
Supplies For Woodburning
- woodburning kit
- black and white picture or image to trace
- pen and pencil
- scrap wood to practice on
- wood to burn – cutting board, wooden spoon, wooden ornaments, coasters
Find a black and white image online or create one that you’d like to burn onto your wood surface. Make sure you resize the image on your computer to fit your wood surface. Print out the image.
Place the printed image on top of your wood surface and trace it by pressing firmly with a pen. This will hopefully leave an indented trace of your image on your wood surface.
We usually go over the indented line with a pencil so you can more easily see where you’re going to add the burn lines.
Turn on your woodburner and let it heat up. Carefully trace the outline of your image where your pencil lines are with your woodburning tool.
Depending on your woodburner, you might need to let it cool before you switch to a different detail tip. We usually use a pair of pliers to safely remove the tip without burning our fingers.
Go back to add detail, shading and fill in any areas with your shading tool.
Take it slow, you can always go back over the lines to darken them or make them more pronounced.
