pyrograhy works!

Well after talking the talk in a previous post, I tried the soldering iron on some wooden spoons and:


It is paler than I'd prefer, but I'm happy enough with the results. The wooden spoons had only a little bit of grain to bump my lines. I'm hoping the paleness is due to the wood type, and that I can get other types that burn better to get a darker colour. I hope so, because I haven't got a temperature controller on the soldering iron to turn up.

For those of you who want to try this at home (I let two friends try and they found it quite easy to get started), the wooden spoon were from the local $2 shop, pale coloured, fine grained, no apparent varnish and cheap. You don't get a lot of (flat) space to draw on, but at $1.50 for 3, it's enough to get a feel for the technique.

So now some more practise, try some other woods and a grand search for period pyrography examples, preferably close to the 12th C. (Let me know if you know any, please!)