Fading woodburnings

[albuqjack]

I have been carving and woodburning for six years. I have noticed that some of my early woodburning work is fading. This is not a contrast issue due to the wood yellowing with age but the charred markings are actually loosing color. The surfaces are finished with Deft aerosol lacquer. Can anyone offer a suggestion that will prevent this from happening. Am I doing something wrong?

Jack

[Mottles]

My first thought was maybe you hadn't used a protective finish on the completed pieces.

Another thought are your pieces hanging in direct sunlight? UV light is very strong and could cause your pieces to fade. If your pieces have been put away in drawers or files then I don't have a clue why they would fade.

What type of wood did you use? Maybe you had some type of chemical reaction when the wood was burned. Just a thought......

Kathy

I mostly use basswood

[albuqjack]

Thank you, Kathy, for your thoughts. No, the carvings are not exposed to direct sunlight, just ambient light both natural and artificial within a room where other carvings hang. Normally I use four of five coats of Deft satin lacquer. All on basswood.

Jack

[WhittleBurner]

That's a bummer that your burnings are fading.

Do you burn hot and fast instead of layering the different shades of the burn.?
Layering will get longer lasting results. It's also possible that the burns are picking up some stray uv rays from the window at certain times of the day as the sun moves. I think even indirect sunlight could cause damage over time. Unfortunately even uv protected sprays such as spar urethane will not stop the sun from fading woodburning. I still have the first couple of burns I did 5 years ago and they haven't faded.

[Irish]

Hey Jack! I did read your posting.

But I really expect that it is the wood behind the burning that is changing not the actual burned lines. Carbon, which is what our burned lines become doesn't change color over time. Archealogists can identify carbon desposits quickly because they retain their pure black coloring even after a millennium.

Wood oxidizes ... it rusts! What was beautiful clear white pine becomes a deep orange rust tone given a few decades. Mahogany is notorious for changing from soft orange to deep marron red. Even my favorite, white birch, starts to darken.

Before anything else try laying a piece of new, raw wood of the same species as your burnings against the finished project. Check if there is any difference in the coloration of just the wood.

To make the comparision easy cut a small 1/2" square window along the edge of a piece of plain, unlined paper. One for each piece of wood. That will block out the burned areas so that you are seeing and comparing just wood to wood.

Let us know the results ....

Susan

OH! I should note here that our sealers also darken over time. As an art student I always loved the muted umber tones of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel paintings. Several decades ago they began cleaning the ceiling to remove the years of dirt and the old varnish that was used to cover his work.

The refurbished paintings are ... in my opinion ... just down right garish in their brightness! Cleaning the varnish and dirt removed that beautiful muted, umber toning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restora...hapel_frescoes Go down towards the bottom and look at the comparison for Daniel

[albuqjack]

Thanks to Marcy and Susan for reactions to my post.

First, regarding to the techniques I used: because these are carvings as opposed to burned line drawings I was interested more in shading and color. I am using a Colwood detailer for my work. I often sear the wood surface at low temperature before actually darkening the wood. I found I could achieve better uniformity with the final burn with this preparation. So in this sense I suppose I was layering on the burn.

Although some of my burnings are rather light (mountain lions) others are fairly dark (a chocolate lab). I have observed fading in both cases. None however are as dark as black carbon.

I have also noted the color of many woods yellow with age. And at first this is what I thought I was seeing. I will of course follow Susan's suggestion of examining the woods with the aid of a mask so as to eliminate or verify this logical effect.

I think it might be helpfull to post before and after photos of an example carving. It will take some time to do this as I will be distracted from the task for a couple of weeks.
Again, thank you all for the attention and help.

Jack