What is 'Wood Burning Art'?

Wood Burning Kit / Wood Burning Art

Wood burning, also known as pyrography art is the wood decoration art that makes use of burn marks from heated objects such as wood burning tools in wood burning kit or kits. In other terms, the art involves decorating or lettering with fire.

Modern wood burning art is done using specialized tools or metal implements heated in a fire. However, modern wood burning artists have gone the extra mile of using sunlight via a magnifying lens to generate heat.

Wood burning art results into various shades and tones, based on the type of tip used and the range of temperature, or even iron application on the woodwork materials. After burning in the desired design, what follows is the coloring of the wooden objects.

In the course of this art, beech, birch, basswood and sycamore, and other light-colored hardwoods are often used. This is due to the fact that they have fine grains that are not obtrusive. However, the art doesn’t limit the use of other woods, and some woodworkers consider it fine to use oaks, pine and Marple.

Besides wooden objects, wood burning is also done on leather items following the same hot-iron method using the wood burning kit. The leather allows for bold design sand subtle shading. However, it's important to note that one needs to use a special vegetable-tanned leather as tanning leaves toxic chemicals on leather.In addition, the chosen leather needs to be in light colors to allow for proper contrast.

Furthermore, wood burning art is also popular among gourd artists and crafters. These are the artists who apply their artistic knowledge to burn the exterior designs of dried hard-shell gourds. The most popular by far however is still and will probably always be the use of wood for obvious reasons; the wood burning kit and the pyrography machine has been especially tested with wooden material.

WoodBurning Art Equipments

Ancient wood burning art is practiced using any hot metal implement. However, modern wood burning employs the use of machines. The pyrography machines or wood burning kits used are categorized into three.

Wire-Nib Pens

These are the wood burning pens with a variable heating control. To heat the writing nib, one needs to directly pass an electric current through it. In fact, some pens have interchangeable nibs to allow for heat adjustments to cater to specific needs.

Solid-Point Burners

These are similar to wood burning kits. The difference between the two is that a solid-nib burner has a solid brass tip heated by passing an electric current through it, and works at an invariable temperature while a wood burning kit has an adjustable on-off switch to control the temperature between 200ºC-450ºC.

Wood

This is the main implement used in the art. In the woodwork process, artists use woods of different figures, grain, texture, hardness, color and other physical features. In terms of hardness, woods can either be soft or hard. Hardwoods are derived from broad-leaved trees while softwoods are achieved from coniferous trees.

WoodBurning Art Safety

 While wood burning art is crucial for the woodwork industry, it can sometimes act as a hazard if one isn’t careful. The process emits toxic fumes when burning. In turn, these hazardous fumes cause respiratory issues, making it necessary for one to wear a mask. One, therefore, needs to take precautions on the quality of dust respirator or mask before venturing into wood burning. We take safety precautions during the making of our wood burning kit. Our wood burning kit has several layers of safety such as heat resistant grip and so forth.