[Woodcarver]wood burned portrait tips-sylda

[RJA]

If you have a light rotary tool (Dremel, Handi-Tool or something 
similar) you can use the 3-M type sanding pads on a mandrel to use to 
lighten up the burned area as well as use on painted surface.  Cut the 
pad in squares and put on the mandrel and after a few uses, the pad will 
round out so cutting the corners is not necessary.  Donot use the green 
pads because they seem to leave a slight green coloring.  The brown that 
BD has 3-M scott brite pads on P. 70 of Cat. #1102 is an industrial pad 
which can be used to smooth the wood and can remove more than intended 
if not watched carefully.
I use pop rivets for the mandrel and make up several at a time so when 
one wears out, I just replace with another setup instead of messing with 
a mandrel.  I currently have several of the white, gray and brown in a 
bag with a rotary tool that I picked up at Menards.  I doubled the price 
of the unit when a put a Dremel variable chuck on so that I didnot need 
to have collets for various sized shafts.
To make the unit, I use a block with a small metal plate on the end with 
a hole drilled to receive the rivet shaft.  Place the pad onto the tip 
of the rivet and then place the washer on top of the pad.  Hold the 
washer down tight with a needle nose pliers or something similar.  Tap 
the rivet tip with a small hammer until the washer is held tight.  Using 
aluminum rivets seem to work fairly well and easy to work with.

Dick Allen


Linehan718 at aol.com wrote:

> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Hi Sylda,  I know my pics aren't very good, but that problem should be 
> solved shortly-getting myself a nice digital cam for xmas, then I will 
> work on my photography skills.  This was my first pyrography portrait.  
> what i did was, scan a picture into my pc-resized it and sharpened it 
> and converted it to greyscale.  printed it out and used carbon paper to 
> copy it to the wood.  I only worried about main features, the shape of 
> the face and blocked out large areas of shading.  I know you can't see 
> it by my pic but there is some very delicate shading in the burning, 
> giving it an almost realistic look.  This was all done free hand with 
> the original picture as my model.  I thought I had ruined it a few times 
> but learned that as long as you don't scortch too deeply into the wood, 
> you can use fine sandpaper to lighten up any area you need to.  I would 
> burn then sand, burn again until I was happy with it.  when the burning 
> was done, i then did stop cuts all around the top of the picture, to the 
> depth of 3/8"( wood was 3/4" thick)  then dug it out and beveled it up 
> to the remaining surface. then sanded it all smooth so that the portrait 
> popped out from the wood.
>  
>  
> Maura carvin' in nyc
> http://www.picturetrail.com/whiteknight718
> 



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