Burning letters

[Barber]

I have a customer that needs to burn lettering into wood. Is there some type of vinyl or mask that I could cut, reverse weed, apply to the wood and then use a torch to burn the lettering out? *I need some type of mask that would not melt. Or does anyone have any ideas how to do this?

 

[2B]

not sure about a no burn vinyl, or mask

have you thought/looked into getting a metal fabricator to make some metal lettering into brands?
get them red hot and burn the wood.

Same concept as they use to brand cattle

 

[Barber]

I have not thought about that might work.

 

[CanuckSigns]

depending on the size of the piece, a laser engraver would work, check with local engraving shops and see what they could do

 

[axis]

Sandcarving then airbrushing a fill might give you the look you want. Also, a dull router bit in a cnc router, run at a slow speed, will burn the wood while cutting.

 

[Barber]

Thank you all. What my customer is doing will be used one time only. Every time the info will change on his job. If there was some way to make a branding iron where the lettering could be changed that would work. But I have no idea how to set that up. Any other ideas?

 

[GAC05]

Might want to check with Mosh here, he posted some photos a while back with something similar.

wayne k
guam usa

 

[Gino]

Wood Burning Pen Set. When I was a kid, I used to make lots of pictures in wood, leather and other stuff. It's real easy.

 

[CheapVehicleWrap]

Thank you all. What my customer is doing will be used one time only. Every time the info will change on his job. If there was some way to make a branding iron where the lettering could be changed that would work. But I have no idea how to set that up. Any other ideas?

It will work. I have a branding iron with a round logo with 3 letters on it I found in some wooden crates once. You can't change the letters on this one though. The iron itself is probably 10-12 time the size of a normal soldering iron. Hefty but not huge.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

just so you know I tried (out of desperation) to make a vinyl mask to burn our logo into wood using a torch just this past weekend. It did not end well.

What I ended up doing with decent success was making a vinyl stencil, lightly spraypainting the logo with black spraypaint, then lightly sanding it. It doesn't look exactly like a "brand" but it was close enough for what we were after.

Attached is a closeup of how it came out, as well as a shot of the whole sign to give you an idea. This was for an awards ceremony we sponsored, it had a school theme and we made the seating chart to look like a blackboard. We wanted our logo to be on the frame fairly small, branding it seemed to be the best way to do it. The frame is cedar, I "stained" it with a torch to bring out the grain, lightly sanded, painted the logo, sanded again, and then torched the whole thing again to blend it together. Up close the logo shows a bit more grain than I wanted, but it's actually only about 1" tall so from normal viewing distance it looks burned in, several people asked me if we actually branded the frame, which is good because that's the effect I was after...

Anyway, not sure if this would work for your application but I figured I'd throw it out there...

 

[MikePro]

you can transfer a pattern to wood via vinyl/stencil or digital print + acetone (there's youtube videos on this).

and then simply "paint-by-numbers" with a wood burning kit and a LOT of patience.

 

[CES020]

Metal stencils? They make them, I know. Not sure exactly what you're trying to do and how much text it is, or if it varies in size, etc. Metal stencils you can buy off the shelf just might work. I haven't tried it, so I'm just thinking out loud here.

 

[ForgeInc]

You can get it lasered. The amount of burn/smoke effect depends on how slow/powerful the laser is set. you can also use reflective papers to trap heat in. Set up a sample file and do some tests prior to production, it works great.

This example has fairly crisp edges, but we ran tests that were much more smoky.

 

[Mosh]

I do cedar signs with this look. Cut a vinyl stencil with the copy pulled out
and apply that to the cedar. Then use a dremel tool and carve the letters. Then
spray dark brown and/or black. Let dry and remove the vinyl. Woodburned look.

 

[allamericantrade]

Instead of actual burning... apply vynle as a stencil and brush on a dark wood stain.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

Instead of actual burning... apply vynle as a stencil and brush on a dark wood stain.

This doesn't work, tried it, the stain bleeds under the vinyl pretty badly. Tried lightly sponging the stain on, same thing. Drybrushing it, same thing...Stain is too thin. I didn't try the spray stain in an aerosol can but I'd suspect the same thing would happen.

 

[petepaz]

i would say your best bet is with the laser. like a few already mentioned. (if you have a steady hand you could use the wood burning pen like gino said)

 

[Barber]

Thanks to all. Some good ideas and I will try some of them.

 

[Tony McD]

wonder if you could reverse cut the mask....then mist with lighter fluid or something flammable, pull the mask and light it on fire? Hair spray seems pretty flammable.

 

[jfiscus]

Do a combo of the above mentioned items; reverse weed, apply, then get out the wood burning pen/tool and burn it in.

If worried about the tool melting the vinyl to it permanently; apply the reverse weed, hit it with a light coat of spray paint, then remove the vinyl & burn the painted areas. Should smell great too...