Any pyrographers on here?

[MartinF]

Our local Arts Society recently organised an exhibition of arts and crafts produced by our members. The works included paintings, ceramics, quilting, embroidery and stained glass. One of the members, a very talented artist, brought along some pyrography that she had produced. She has only recently taken up the hobby but, already, the quality of her work is amazing; her designs were based, in part, on sketches that she had made.

However, being new to the craft, she was unsure of the best wood to use. For some of her early work she apparently used some pieces of skirting board that a neighbour had given her. The pieces that she displayed used some 6 mm cheap plywood that she got from B&Q although the finished articles looked superb. However, going forward, she would like to experiment with “proper” wood.

So, what species would work best; I thought, possibly, beech, walnut, oak and poplar/tulipwood? Do pyrographers on here have any sources that they can recommend? If needed, I could buy full size planks from Wentwood Timber and use my p/t, bandsaw and chop saw to cut pieces to size.

One final query: what finish would you recommend?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Lons]

I've done a bit in the past Martin, still have the equipment. Any, preferably ligh coloured wood is perfectly suitable but so is good quality ply or veneered MDF. Also plain MDF but be careful of the fumes.
Cheap cutting boards from shops such as TK MAX, Home Bargains etc. including the bamboo ones are good. You can burn patterns into bone and shell with care as well if she wants to try a different media. Anothe good source is to trawl the flooring shops and pick up samples of hardwood flooring or disconinued, or ex display lengths though these are limited in width.

She'll need practice to get a feel for how hot the tips should be and how long to hold them on the wood as it varies by species. I've used Maple, oak beech, sycamore, lime, box as well as some darker woods such as walnut.

Finish can be anything you like thats suitable for the use of the end product so whatever floats her boat.

 

[Mike G]

My daughter does quite a lot. She's impressively good. If no-one else comes up with the answers you need, I can ask her....but she's in Sweden, and communication can be intermittent.

 

[Woodbloke]

I now use a pyro tool to initial and date all my work, so whilst I'm no artist, I have used lots of different woods; I don't though have an especially good (hot enough?) pen. In my experience, timbers that you might think would be great are awful and won't 'burn' very well so stuff like Oak and other coarse grained timbers aren't very good, though my current air dried Olive Ash seems to be fine. Holly and Boxwood won't burn very well and neither will Pine as it's too resinous, Cherry is good IIRC as is Walnut which is excellent. Birch is supposed to be very good but for some reason I've had poor results on Bog Oak, Ebony and African Blackwood - Rob

 

[MartinF]

Many thanks to Bob and Rob for their very helpful replies which I'll pass on.

Mike - thanks for your kind offer but I think that Bob and Rob have given me enough to go on.

 

[Woodbloke]

Mike -... and Rob have given me enough to go on.

Consider a little more why I've had poor pyro results on Bog Oak, Ebony and African Blackwood - Rob