Options other then carving wood?

bogwalrus

I have a soft wood that i want letters "pressed" into. Carving would be too long a process so i'm looking for other techniques to get these letter shape in the wood.

Can you do it with wood burning?

Alun

Yes, you can use a pyrography "pen", or even a soldering iron. If the soldering iron is hot enough then you can get a degree of indentation but not that much.

How big are the letters to be? You can get router templates for numbers and letters from Trend but these are quite big, over 2", and are very expensive for the full set, so not really an option unless you're going to do lots of them, say commercially for signposts and the like.

bogwalrus

Thank for your reply. I had a go off the soldering iron but it broke half way throw and was quite a tedious task.

Each letter will be Bold and around 1cm.

Maybe i could get one of these router templates and just place on the wood and burn with my soldering irons flame torch? If i could get


I just found a website that sell branding irons. I could just get one made with letters i need and Brand each one quite deep.

Alun

The router templates are made of acrylic sheet so wouldn't take kindly to being blasted with a flame torch

If it's a limited set of letters you need , then it sounds like a set of branding irons might be a better solution. Otherwise you could make up a set of templates yourself out of sheet metal and revert to your idea of using your flame torch method.

Cedrus

For minimal investment pokerwork, I've used pound shop screwdrivers heated on a gas hob (while cooking a slow casserole)(fireplace in the winter or barbie in the summer would work too). You need at least three, one in use, one heating and one heated. If they're too light they won't hold the heat, too short and the handles will burn, longer heavier ones are better.

recipio

Why not buy a letter punch kit.? They go from 1mm up to 8mm. Just draw lines on the wood to keep the letters even. Available from www.axminster.co.uk.

bogwalrus

recipio wrote: »

Why not buy a letter punch kit.? They go from 1mm up to 8mm. Just draw lines on the wood to keep the letters even. Available from www.axminster.co.uk.

You are a life saver. thanks man. I nearly went and paid for a guy to do the 150 boxes i needed. I cant thank you enough that thing is perfect:D

Cedrus

bogwalrus wrote: »

You are a life saver. thanks man. I nearly went and paid for a guy to do the 150 boxes i needed. I cant thank you enough that thing is perfect:D

150 boxes!!
You should have mentioned the scale of the job in your first post, it would have got more appropriate suggestions much faster. No wonder the soldering iron was tedious.

recipio

bogwalrus wrote: »

You are a life saver. thanks man. I nearly went and paid for a guy to do the 150 boxes i needed. I cant thank you enough that thing is perfect:D

Most welcome. You're still going to need patience to do 150 boxes.!! Good luck.

bogwalrus

what i plan on doing is assembling the letters together and getting a big hammer making it easier.:D

recipio

bogwalrus wrote: »

what i plan on doing is assembling the letters together and getting a big hammer making it easier.:D

:rolleyes: I'd think about making a jig as you have so many to do.It would keep the appearance of the lettering constant.
A grid made to match the dimensions of the punches and a stop on the top and side to reference it on the boxes would make the whole job more professional.?

boatbuilder

If you want the same thing on each box, I'd consider doing it by lino print.

Just get some artist's lino, carve out the letters (in mirror image), glue the lino onto a slightly curved block of wood and stamp each box with dark brown acrylic paint. Looks great.

If you zoom in on this photo you can see the logo stamp I did with lino print.
It gives the "branded" effect, although its just acrylic paint.

http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z282/boat_builder/Toboggan/?action=view&current=DSCN0049.jpg

Another lesser know way to burn a shape onto wood is to chemically burn it on using Ammonium Chloride. You can buy it on ebay really cheap, just mix it with some water and apply it to the wood. Hit it with a heat gun and it will magically "burn the wood". Pretty cool, but can be hard to control application of the solution...it can bleed a bit on softwoods leaving you with a fuzzy pattern