Acorn WIP

[Irish]

Nedra,

I believe that would be a great idea - doing a test run with the RazorTip! I would love to try the Optima as well ... nothing like wanting one of each is there.

Most excellent suggestion if everyone doesn't mind if I wait until after the holidays for it. There is no way I can add even one more task to my table before New Years.

Could you check for me if there have been any major changes in the RazorTip in the last three years. That's how old my system is. It's in pristine working condition but I wouldn't want to use it if there have been upgrades. That would not be fair or honest to RazorTip!

You are absolutely correct and I did not mean to imply that RazorTip was twice the price as Colwood ... I did not make a clear enough statement.

And I agree about apples, apples and oranges. I think my point this morning was more about what type of investment a pyrographer (or at least me) is willing to make in a system when they already know they are hooked on burning versus the investment that someone just starting out might want to make.

As an experienced pyrographer I am willing to invest in the better units, with more options and more power even when it might cost me twice as much or more then the beginner style units. I did not hestitate knowing in advance that I was about to drop $250 on a burning system and when I discovered that I could get the dual unit from RazorTip well under that price I started adding more pens and more tips ... Grin! ... I had $250 burning a hole in my pocket and knew that I couldn't go wrong spending it with RazorTip ... 'Nother Big Grin.

Today, I have the same feeling about Colwood. If I were headed out to get my first large/studio fully equiped system at Colwood I probably would have another $250 in my pocket and be picking out pens and tips as well.

However, for this WIP and Test I made a decision based on the idea of what a newbie might be looking at and looking to spend ....

My best example of this is that my first 'table saw' was a ... dare I say it out loud ... a table top mini by Dremel. And so was my first scroll saw. I still have the little dremel table saw and still sometimes use it. But as a new woodworker I was not about to drop the money into a new hobby that I did when we purchased the Riobi ... even then I don't want to talk about how much that Riobi cost us ... AHH!

Susan

[Irish]

The two pens on the left are Colwood interchangeables and the two on the right are RazorTips. The Colwood has the double heavy pins that snap inside the pen for an easy firm connection.

The RazorTip depends on two screws that need to be opened then the ends of the wire tip are placed under those screws with the screws then reset. The nuts that those screw set into are soldered onto the heavy wires of the pen. For me this caused several problems ... remember non-techno geek here! First is how to get a good connection between the screws, tip wire and nut so that you get a good energy transfer to the burning tip. Not enough pressure and your pen tip doesn't burn evenly or as hot as you would expect on that setting.

Too much pressure and I found that I was inadvertently bending the pen wires. Look on the third from the left pen and you can see the twist that began to develop. Even when I waited for ten minutes for the pen to be absolutely cold I still got twisting. Quick note here ... I did not nor would try and change out a hot pen or change out while I thought the wires were still pliable from the heat.

Also if you look on my newest interchangeable from RazorTip you can see that the two nuts have begun to touch ... that's not good either for even burning. When you go to reset the screws you are naturally pushing the screw and post into the post on the opposite side. I did finally figure out that I had to put a little something, a brace, between the two posts before I reset the screws.

With the RazorTip I would agree that the fixed pens are going to give you much more even heat. For me the screw set is just not easy to use nor easy to keep the pen in good condition. As I noted earlier I have already snapped two and you can see the third (far right) is already starting to warp with the nuts coming into contact.

The Colwood interchangeable tip that is set in the pen (second from left) is the one that I had in the pen when I changed out to the 16 gauge wire ... it's the one that went from cold to white hot in under 2 seconds! I don't think I had any heat lose with that one! Big Grin.

For me, the snap in system just seems so much more user friendly and I believe it will give a very strong positive connection where I won't have to worry about heat lose. Oh, and snapping them in or out is really easy! So I won't hesitate to invest in and use more Colwood interchangeables.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 83: I want to deepen the shadows in the mouse before I add any fur texturing. I am using the Writing Tip, the basic writing position and a temp setting of 5.

Step 84: I think you can see the mouse's shadows a little better in this photo. Plus I have turned up the heat to a temp setting of 7 to fill in the eyes and nose tip.

Step 85: Some areas of a burning are so tight that it is not possible to keep one area from becoming slightly toned during the burning of another. In this case the white highlights became slightly tan while I was burning the black of
the eyes. A bench knife can be used to cut into the plywood to clean, fresh white wood for those highlights.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 86: It's time to add some fur lines to our mouse. I have changed tips to the Colwood "J" which is a super fine line writer. I have pulled my hand up into the paint brush position so that I am burning right on the very tip edge of the tip and have set the temp up to 7.

The pen tip is so fine that even at this higher temp the lines are medium toned sienna brown coloring. Because most of the fur lines will be burnt across the grain I am moving in a slow even pull so that the tip can 'cut' through those grain fibers.
Now I don't need to over pack the fur lines because I already have the skin shading in place. So my lines are not sitting one on top of another. I don't want to lose what I have already done with the shading but instead add the idea that the mouse is furry.

In my experience each animal has it's own type of fur and how you burn that animal depends on several physical attributes. Some animals have one layer of fur that is about the same texture and weight over it's entire body as does
our mouse. His fur is very fine, short and about the same coloring throughout his coat. So for our mouse an even burning of short medium colored hairs will work very nicely.

Other animals have layers of fur. Dogs and wolves have an undercoat of very fine, often pale toned fur which lies shorter and therefore under the upper layer of regular fur. The top layer of fur usually is more coarse and carries the medium tones of color for the coat. A third layer of fur in the wolf family is called the guard hairs. These are the longest pieces of fur, much more coarse and usually the darkest in coloring. You can easily find undercoat fur along the underarm area of your pet dog. If you blow into the fur area at the base of his neck you will see that some fur is longer (the guard hairs) then other fur (the undercoat). In wolves the guard hairs are very noticeable in the cape area at the base of the neck between the shoulder blades.

Then there are animals that have different textures of hair in different areas of their bodies. The buffalo and elk come right to mind for me. The fur on an elk's face and neck are dramatically longer and thicker then the hair on the rest of his body. In the buffalo the fur of the face and mane are extremely long and frizzy or curly.

So ... maybe sometime soon we can have fun doing a fur WIP ... but for today let's get the mouse done.

Step 87: You can see in the scan of the project that the mouse fur is in place and I have added some shading inside the ears.

Step 88: Here's a close up that you can use for your mouse. Notice that the fur runs with the body shape and so is burned in slightly curved lines. I did not burn lines into the highlight areas of the forehead or nose. The mouse's fur is so short and slick that these area would not show individual hairs. I also have not added hair lines along the edges of the ears.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 89:This seemed a good time to do a gray scale check. Most graphic programs or scanner programs will let you turn a photo or scan into a gray scale. Now I can easily check for my tonal value range from whites to black. I am want to check for several things here.

1. Do I have strong black areas in the burning?

2. Do I have clean, unburned white areas?

3. Do I have enough contrast between the tonal values where one element touches another?

4. Where am I confused about what is happening in the project?

Step 90: So far I have strong whites and blacks but I think I need more variety in the mid-tones range. Notice with the mouse's ears that the one in front of his body stands out more clearly then the one in front of the leaf. The upper leaf seems a little too pale overall for as deep as it is in the patterns. And I think I need to tuck the mouse's bottom deeper into the design by darkening it.

OK ... tomorrow we will work on creating strong tonal contrast between the different elements.

If you are copying this WIP so that you can work the project the next steps start on post #155.

Susan

[Woodartist]

Isn't "Razor Tip" made in Canada, or do they have an American manufacturing facility?

[WOODIE13]

Originally Posted by Pyrographer

I do have to agree that as interchangeable tips go the Colwood is easier to change and use and puts you closer to the work but it's still not as easy as a fixed tip pen and that was mostly my point. Fixed tip pens are still easier to use and change and you can remove them while they are still hot and just place them in the holder on the burner. With interchangeable tips you don't have that luxury.

Nedra

You can still do that with IC tips as well, it comes the pull so a quick change can be in order for the Colwood tips. Never had any issue with them, hot or not.

Never fooled with the one piece pens.

[Irish]

Woodie,

I have discovered the same thing. Colwoods interchangeables are of solid strong construction and have such direct contact to the pen that the burning I am getting is the same as one with a fixed pen. Since you are changing out the entire pen tip not just a bent wire there was no issue of heat in doing the exchange.

It's not like you are working only with the hot wires of the posts or the hot wire of the tip as is the case with the RazorTip.

I don't know why I have already gone through two RazorTip interchangeable pens and it looks like the third is headed in the same direction. And I haven't called Cam as it may well be me. But I do know that I am not going to have that problem with the system I am trying out now.

Even though, as Paul joked earlier, I do get to write some of this off our taxes as 'advertising' and 'contributions' that doesn't mean that I don't need every dollar I spend to be worthwhile and usable ... just like any other hobbyist or crafter. So, yea, if I want to try some specialty tips I want that investment easy to use and very long lasting .... just my opinion.

And as I said I was doing this as a test and review, the differences between manufacturer's systems may be small but for me this one, easy changeable pen tips, ranks really high on my list of goodies ... right along with the cork handles and excellent tonal value range of the temp settings.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 91 and 92: Comparisons of where we are at and where we are going.
What I want to do is strengthen the tonal values to create more contrast between elements. Since I can't lighten an area I will need to darken values to create that difference.

I think it might be easier on you if you see now what the final changes look like before we work on how I did them.

So ... I was at the grocery store yesterday and came across a pack of three unfinished wooden (poplar) spoons. This is the first at 10" high and 1 1/2" wide. Including the time for a light sanding and the burning it was about a 20 minute project which would make a nice Holiday gift.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 93 Top row: The mouse's ear is in the foreground of the pattern has not been burned along the upper edge. So this area is in my white tone. That ear should really stand out in the design. Notice in the image on the left that at this time there is not a strong distinction between the ear and the leaf behind it. By darkening the tones of the leaf I can add more emphasis to the ear - push it forward by dropping the other element in tonal value.

Step 93 Middle Row: His little bottom does not yet tuck behind the acorn nor does his tail really go between the acorn cap stem and the leaf. In the right hand photo you can see that I have darkened his bottom where it slips under the cap and darkened the leaf where it surrounds the tail. Now I feel like I have three levels - a foreground for the cap, a mid ground for the mouse's bottom and tail and a background leaf.

Step 93 Bottom Row: Right now the background leaf and the acorn cap are still at the same tonal value. By darkening the leaf I give more contrast to this area. In all three of these samples notice that I am dropping the value of the entire area especially in the leaves. I am burning everything at the same time including the leaf sections and the leaf veins.

Step 94 Top Row: The side of the face of my mouse is disappearing into the leaf behind it. Just as I did with the highlights in the eyes I have grabbed my bench knife and cut a fine line along the outer edge of the eye and the lower cheek. That extremely thin line of white is enough to separate the two elements.

Step 94 Middle Row: My shadow was not strong enough to make the mouse's head feel solid, with weight. The strength of your shadows implies the thickness, weight or solidity of that from which they are cast. So a weak shadow implies a weak element. I have toned the shadow areas under the mouse in the right hand photo.

Step 94 Bottom Row: My highlights in the acorns are too defined so I have added a little mid-tone shading along the edges of the highlights to soften them. I have also dropped the tonal value along the bottom third of the acorn to set it back farther into the pattern.

Step 95: Here's a side by side comparison of where I am at in the burning. I have really reduced the size of each photo and gray scaled the photos. Sometimes reducing the image after you take a photo or scan let's you see the tonal value work more clearly because it eliminates the detailing and texturing of the photo. This is an easy tip for improving your burnings. Where the left side burning is 'nice' the right side burning is obviously 'better' as it is more distinct in contrasting values.

Susan