[Paul_Guraedy]

Susan, you have just provided me with an interesting couple of hours! I have been preoccupied lately, first I was preparing for a session with Debbe Edwards (starting Monday) and then had to cancel out. Diana fell and broke her foot last Monday night. The break looked simple but was something called a Lis Franc Fracture and one of the most serious. Visits to the Orthopaedist, etc. have taken most of my time.

Anyway, I finally got around to taking a look at the Colwood posting.

It took only a casual reading to realize that this was a tutorial I wanted to keep. It took me almost 2 hours to save all of your postings, the responses and the photos onto my computer and then to manipulate them into a printable MSWord file.

A quick look shows that there are 24 pages (Verdana 10 font), 36 photos, and 8,100 words. Sounds more like a book than an internet posting! The beauty of this is that there is input from others, references to websites, and with all of the photos saved onto my computer, I can go to them and blow them up to take closer looks. I am now planning to print everything and keep it with your “Great Book of Woodburning”.

Susan, realizing that you make your living from this kind of thing, I don’t think those of us on the list can thank you enough for your time and effort! Considering the fact that most decent woodcarving books start in the $15 range and there have been (at posting) 645 views; you have already given out over $10K in free instruction.

Maybe you can parlay this into a charitable deduction with the IRS!!

[Woodartist]

Agree Paul, and Susan also has some great free tutorials on her website. http://www.carvingpatterns.com/ Always nice to have talented people offer clear, easy to understand help to some of us who can use the information.

[Irish]

8100 Words ... Mike has always said that I use ten words when one would have done just fine!

I love doing things like this. In fact, when Mike and I came onto the net back in '97 it meant that I could return to 'teaching' even if it was through pictures and words and digital bits.

My beloved hubby often says that I become emotional constipated if I'm not teaching something somewhere to someone ....

I want to extend my greatest appreciations to Fox Chapel and Wood Carving Illustrated! They are truly the ones that give so much to all of us. I could never publish a step-by-step like this one or the Grape Man Carving on our website. We, Mike and I, don't have either the storage space or bandwidth.

But more importantly we don't have a way that you and I can talk, interact and discuss what we are doing in real time. It's the interaction, the real time questions, the side chats about wattage or polishing tips that make any tutorial into what you really want to know!

Paul, please tell Diana that we all hopes she recovers easily and quickly.
Susan

[Irish]

Paul Ready for another thousand words ?

Step 16: Sorry the photo is so dark, I lost my camera settings over night.
I have begun my background work. I am using the Writing position, Writing tip and setting 9 ... and INSTANT PROBLEMS!!!!

You can see in the photo that my first burning is in the center area of the
background and I am using a simple touch and lift spot texture. This is my
favorite for very very dark areas.

My problem ... I have large halos in the surrounding areas of where I am
burning. There can be several situations that create halos. The first is the
wood, some woods have higher sap content and that sap tends to halo. The
second is the hand position that I am using. Hesitation or slowness in the
burning stroke is a third cause.

I have had a little haloing before but never like this. So let's find out
what's going on here.

Step 16A: You can see the haloing as a yellowish stain in the areas that
surround the burn.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 16B: I set aside the project and decided to do a test burn on my
practice board. My first test square is at my normal pace of burning in the
writing position. Holding my hand as if I were holding an ink pen means that
the pen tip is low and angled to the board. At high heats even though you
are only touching the point of the tip to the board the rest of the tip wire
can be hot enough to scorch the surrounding wood. This is a good possibility for what is happening on my board.

Step 16C: When I take a photo I set the camera on delay then get my hand into position ... in this photo I hit the board one camera click before the actual photo was taken. In that extra instant of metal to wood I popped a little flame

The flame is not from the wood, it's from the glue. I am working on 1/8",
three layer plywood birch. That extra instant was long enough for the tool
tip to burn through the first layer of wood and contact the glue layer
beneath.

Step 16D: So let's look at how that photo should have looked. I have a nice
and even cherry red tip and am getting a substantial halo with each touch and lift spot.

Step 16E: Now I have lifted my hand into the Painting position. My tool is
almost vertical to the board and I am using my little finger to support and
steady my hand. Again, working at my normal burning pace and at temp setting 9 I worked my touch and lift spot texture. Not as much haloing but it is still very noticeable.

Step 16F: I have worked on two different pieces of wood now, one my project and one my test board, and had haloing on both pieces. So I don't think it is the wood. I have worked my touch and lift spot stroke twice, once in writing and then in painting position. So I don't think it's the hand position.

That leaves my pace or speed of burning to test.

In the photo I have picked up my speed.Instead of "touch and lift" I am now
working "touchlift touchlift". And there it is. No haloing.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 16G and Step 16H: My conclusion - I was working too slow for this temp setting on this unit using this pen!

16G shows you the three tests and 16H shows you where they fell inside of the actual burning project. You can see for yourself that with a quicker stroke I am still getting the same tonal value of burn but no haloing.

In My Opinion - I have been thinking through this as I worked the test runs and have two possible conclusions/opinions. These are based on my experience in this project that I am sharing here.

First, I learned my speed or pace of burning on other brands of burners. That is the pace that I have brought to this project as it is a set habit after years of burning. That pace comes because the burners I have used often have a little 'hesitation' or lose of heat during the stroke when you touch then pull the line.

On the other burner when I touch the tip of the pen to the wood I have the highest amount of heat but as I pull through that stroke the tips tend to cool down ever so slightly. They lose that initial heat to the wood at the first
touch. To compensate for this I have learned to pace my burning strokes to allow the tip heat to catch up.

The other compensation is the curved pull through stroke. Here you do not touch the pen to the wood then start your stroke. instead you have the pen in motion then let it contact the wood so that the entire stroke is being pulled. This helps of avoid the change of tone in a line but often burns a paler toned line then the first way.

There are times that I want to 'touch and pull' and others that I want the 'curved pull through' stroke. But either way, my pace or speed has been developed with pen tips that lose that little bit of heat.

The Colwood isn't doing that! I had noted in an early posting that I was getting very even coloration through the burn area at the temp setting of 4. That evenness is still there! Even at temp setting 9 my writing tip wasn't
losing heat.

So at the pace set by other burners I was pausing too long and creating the haloing!

The moment that I adjusted my thinking ... "Hey, Susan, you don't have to wait for the tip to re-heat for the rest of the stroke" ... I lost the haloing but kept the beautiful dark color.

This lead me to a second "Ah-Ha". The first really black burn I did was on the Old Car scene several years ago that appeared in WCI Magazine. After the black burn was over I commented to Mike that my writing tip loop was slightly warped or curved. It had not been before I began the burn.

Mike commented that as the temp setting had been at it's highest, the tip was carrying it's top heat. Wire gets softer (pliable) at higher heats. So probably the high heat had soften the tip just a little, enough to take on the
curved shape.

This is not a problem for me ... ... that curve, ever so slight, was created because of the way I pull my pen and so exactly matches my style of burning.

The Colwood writing pen ... still straight as can be. And I did a whole lot more high temp burning on this project then I ever did on that Old Car.

Susan

[Irish]

Step 19: I did it! Temp Setting 10!!! No Halos!!! No little flames!!! And a
beautiful dark center surrounding the mouse and acorn.

The cork pen grip area near the tip has finally gotten warm ... not hot ...
but warm enough that I can notice it. To this point I have been able to feel
the heat from the pen tip at the temp setting of 9. At ten I can finally feel
it in the pen handle itself. Again, not uncomfortable but noticeable.

Off to do a little more burning.

Oh ... one more thought here ... I had said that I was working on two pieces
of birch plywood. I do not believe that these were cut from the same full
sized sheet of plywood.

Why, you ask? Good question, I say!

I buy my birch plywood off of EBay Many cabinet shops and furniture makers use birch plywood as backing board. They often have piles and piles of small sized piece left over that they sell for a ridiculously low price. I think my box of 100 11" x 11" 1/8" sheets cost me under $25 and that included the shipping and handling.

Talk about a steal ... smirk!

Susan

Ooops ...

Step 17: This is where we were before the background steps were begun.
Step 18: This is the first burning of the background at temp 9.
Step 19: This is the second layering of background near the center at temp 10.

(Edited Oct, 2, 2007 - There is a lot of great chat over the next few pages. But if you are looking for just WIP step-by-step instructions please jump to page 9 post #83. Then come back a have fun reading the good ideas through this chat section. Thanks, Susan)

[VickieJ]

Susan,
This is the most incredible tutorial I've seen. Your attention to detail and names for the things we do when burning give the beginner and old hand a wonderful [show].The shading techniqe{sp}you used in the first shots I always thought of as scribbling.
I've gotten several good chuckels along the way.Notice wiping pen on jeans, done that a million times, in fact my strop is a piece of old levi's w/red or green jewlers compound.Always have on my table 1200 grit paper and #0000 steel wool for polishing my tips. Since I bought the Optima pens 8 yrs ago I've only lost 1 tip, that was my fault, burnining on some teak I pushed to hard(I'm a gripper)and cracked the weld at the tip.Sent it back and they fixed it up like new.
Those lovely halos, another good use for the #0000 steel wool,gets rid of them w/out taking off your intended burn.
I am really looking forward to more of this tutorial. The mapping was something I never tried and it will be next on my projects. Plan on putting it to use on some gourds.
Thank you so much!
VickieJ

[WOODIE13]

Here I sit wondering, what would be the difference in the three types of cords they make for their burners, 14, 16 and 18?

I have been using mine here on and off using a transformer (power over here is 200) and really do not see any major difference in the capability of the burner other than it tends to burn just a little hotter than normal stateside.

Keep it rolling.

[Woodartist]

Not sure of the performance Woodie, but the smaller the number the larger the wire size and therefore the lower the resistance. So, 14 gauge is a larger diameter and less reistance than 18 gauge. Not sure how much of a practical difference there is in a short run from the connector to the pen. If Susan has some different sized cords that might be something else to emperically evaluate???.......guess that was really what you were asking?