Decorating A bread Board By Pyrography

Pyrography

On items such as egg cups and snipping tops that arrive ready coated, as you have to burn through the coating before getting to the wood.

You will need

• Pyrography machine
• Bread board
• Pencils
• Rubber
• Sandpaper
• Tracing paper
• Design book or picture

Step by step

Step 1

Having decided on the design that you wish to burn onto the board by carefully rubbing it down with sandpaper.

Step 2

Next, transfer the design onto the board, either by drawing it directly using a soft pencil (2B), or by means of tracing paper. Don’t press too hard with the pencil, light guide lines are all that are needed. The project illustrated is using a hedgehog.

Step 3

The next step is to use the pyrograph to burn in the outline of the picture. Don’t burn too heavily at this stage. Remember to star and stop moving off the work, to avoid blobs forming which are caused when you stop on the wood. As you reach the end of the line you are burning, lift the point off the work without coming to a halt. Clean off all the pencil marks using the rubber.

Step 4

You can now start to put in details such as the eyes and nose. With any animal picture the eyes are one of the most important points to get right. Pyrography lends itself well to representing fur and feather and so is a very good medium for wildlife pictures.

The main body can now be worked on, trying to get a good impression of the spines. Add any final details, such as whiskers on the snout. These are also very important, and make all the difference to the final picture.

Step 5

Give a final clean-up of any marks left on the board. If you wish, a light coating of cooking or woodturners’ oil can be applied to the board to seal and protect it, and your project is finished.