Woodburning (Pyrography) with a soldering iron

My girlfriend and I recently moved to a tiny apartment. As with many tiny apartments, the hallway is... pretty stark.

I wanted to add a personal touch to my ugly door, and more importantly, I wanted to play with my new toy, a Weller P2K catalytic soldering iron. It comes with a set of tips which includes a hot knife.

Why not find out if the hot knife tip can do some wood-burning, and along the way make a nice plaque for the door? Why not indeed.

Step 1 Work the kinks out of your calligraphy

Well, let's say I am not really that great at calligraphy. Sure I find reason to write nicely on something once in awhile, but my writing tends to deteriorate to terrible scribbles quite quickly.

So grab up a paper, find some fonts you like and start scribbling. You could print it out and trace the letters, but ultimately you will need the fine motor skills to guide a very hot pen across the wood, so practicing writing is a good thing. Remember, there is no eraser!

The font I ended up going with on this project was "Fontleroy Brown." Several other fonts also got scribbled on this paper.

All those "A"s are from a totally different Uncial font, but I sure drew a lot of them just to get my hand under control. Look at the total lack of consistency. You will have to do better than that, or your sign will be hell of ugly. I drew a whole page of these as well as covered the other page in scribbles.

I also picked that ampersand ("&") from a site that showed the history of the ampersand. I think it looks damn fine, and is actually really fun to write. As you can see on the second page, I drew a lot of them to make sure I had it down.

Comments

[wenui]

Hello,
I did a support plates..

[Rishnai]

I tried with a cheap iron, and one one step up from cheap. In fact, most of the irons that I've owned taht were precisely one step up from the bottom rung were the worst, in some cases not even getting hot enough to solder within any kind of human attention span, and then only soldering for a couple of seconds before becoming too cold again. The cheapo iron worked pretty well, but took forever and a day. Not doing that again. My new idea (which I have yet to test) is to use, say, a welding rod and an oxyacetelene or MAPP flame, and heat the rod, begin drawing, and keep the heat on the rod, far enough up from the tip to not burn the wood itself. At the end of the stroke, lift the rod, heat back up red-hot, and repeat. I get a feeling that won't work, but if it does, it will save me a lot of cash.

[corey95]

you can get a cheap but good 25 watt 120 volt iron at wal-mart for $10 i bought it and am very pleased at how it works it heats up in 30 secs to a minute no more

[Father Christmas]

"This was tons of fun. It's like art, but for men!" i love that quote!

[qwerty90210]

ha. this is funny because i solder with a woodburner

[Rokko8652]

I woodburn with a solder. Kinda, it has tips for both :D

[xxkeanureevesxx]

Lol i got a 1,385 Fahrenheit :D

[the gizmoman]

wish i could have one!!!!

[GorillazMiko]

You have a nice soldering iron. How much was it?

[Rectifier]

Cost me $90 after tax here in Canada. I believe it goes for $70-80 in the states. Worth every penny to me, because it lets me take the iron to the work, instead of the other way around. I've crawled under the desk with it to fix a cord. And it's oh so nice to be rid of the cord on the iron! It is NOT a proper temperature-controlled station though, for "real work" soldering all day. However, I would consider it better from a hobbyist point of view where you are soldering maybe an hour at a stretch. And it is WAY better than a cheap rat shack iron. It gets very hot, too. You have to be careful to clean the tip regularly and make sure it is wet with solder, or it will oxidize really fast and you have to buy another ($14). I cooked most of the tip that came with it on the first job I did, luckily the point and one side still wets so I can still use it.

[FrenchCrawler]

I want to buy this iron, so hopefully I'll have the money needed before the end of the year. Luckily the replacement tips are only $4.95, so I'll probably get like 2 or 3 along with it just to make sure I have them later.

[Rectifier]

Yeah, the tips for electric irons are much cheaper than the gas tips. A bit annoying to me now as a gas iron owner, but tips last a long time anyways if you treat them nice. Reason for the high price is that on the gas iron the flame actually burns inside the tip on a piece of platinum catalyst - thus the extra cost over the electric ones, which are just a piece of metal (with fancy platings of course)

[FrenchCrawler]

I have an Iroda Micro-Therm MJ-600K... it's a wonderful tool to have around. It uses regular disposable lighters as its fuel source or you can use its two refillable lighters (mine came with two and a hard plastic case. The lighters don't have flints installed cause they don't need them). Though I want to upgrade at some point to one of their more powerful and precise tools.

[Rectifier]

I used to have one of those! I used it mainly for starting fires and lighting smokes though :P It was a little big for my pocket though (and it clogged on me), so now for my fire-starting needs I have a Colibri Firebird. Same flame as those guys, but about the same size as a regular lighter, made of anodized aluminum. Got it for $20 from a shop clearing out (they closed the next day), or I never would have bought it. I think it regularly retails for $50 or something, way too much for a lighter! Note that mine clogged (took about a year) because I used the cheapest Ronson fuel. I also clogged my Colibri on the first day with that fuel - luckily I got back to the store before they closed and they told me of the problem and backflushed it with pure butane. Now I run the Colibri fuel in all my torches, including my iron. I had trouble believing it, but I haven't had a problem since. I guess the Ronson gas is pretty crappy!

[GorillazMiko]

Yeah, I started small fires with it. I got bored so I burned a little bit of my bed sheet hahaha. Then I burned my blanket and sweat pants a little, it was boring. The soldering iron is perfect for small jobs and stuff. It's awesome. :-)

[Rectifier]

Oops, mine was a little different after all. I just noticed yours is catalytic, whereas mine just had a blue pencil flame. In any case, crappy gas will still poison the catalyst.

[FrenchCrawler]

Yeah, it's a flameless heat gun. But one of these days, I want to get their Solderpro 180 kit or something equal to it just for the cordless operations that come up every once in a while (but otherwise, I'll stick with the corded cause it'll be an unnecessary waste of fuel).

[GorillazMiko]

Wow... $90? I barely have $5 haha. But I have a soldering gun from Weller, it's pretty good, I might buy a soldering iron at Radio Shack for $8, my friend has one, it's pretty good.

[!Andrew_Modder!]

i bought the solder kit from radio shack (its the same price for a kit and higher wattage soldering iron, idk y lol) and i do got to say it is Very Nice! Plus when ever i am done soldering the tip allows you to grind it down for a new looking tip each time you solder! :-)! cause the tip is made out of.. umm mabe brass-carbon-somthing alloy idk, but it is great!

[GorillazMiko]

Ok cool. Is it the one with the blue handle?

[!Andrew_Modder!]

its this one. http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062758&cp=2032058.2032236.2032313&parentPage=family

it has a black handle and a grey rubber grip
... lol fast responce!

[GorillazMiko]

Yeah. That's the one my friend has.

[!Andrew_Modder!]

ya its nice

[w00ty32]

cool, im gonna buy that one. I was gonna anyway, but now i have someone i relatively know that says it's a good iron. And 8 dollars! ya can't beat that!

[!Andrew_Modder!]

ya its great, iv never had a prob w it. and best of all the tip, when your done you can actually just sand off for a fresh tip ! ! :-) iv done it many times and its still working like a charm

[w00ty32]

ya, i figured even if I completely screw up the tip, it's only 8 bucks to replace it. cool, though, that will help with cleaning

[!Andrew_Modder!]

ya lol but, honestly just a few swipes of med grit paper does wonders.

[w00ty32]

sweet. and does the stand actually work, or should I make one from one of the many ones that have been made here

[!Andrew_Modder!]

u no what. actually it actually works lol i was surprised ! .. the base slides around on like hard, flat surfaces a little, ( best on wood ) . but ya its great!

[w00ty32]

sweet, it looked a little fimsy

[!Andrew_Modder!]

no not all, its steel. you'd b surprised lol

[w00ty32]

I knew it was metal, but it looked like cheap, thin metal to me. thanks for answering all m questions, i mad me feel better about buying tat der soderin iron

[w00ty32]

i was thinking about actually buying one of those weller stations that cost about 40 bucks, but i don't have that kind of money for somthing that im just starting in.

[Rectifier]

If you consider electronics a serious hobby, $90 is not that much. A proper Weller bench station will set you back at least $150, over $300 for a nice one. Those rat shack irons are functional, but not great. You can do a lot with them, if you have really steady hands. I have soldered SMT parts with one (once) but will never do that again! I admit my "go to" iron for tacking things together, until getting this one, was a rat shack $10 iron thrown in my toolbox, with a Weller soldering station on my bench for fine work. They take a thrashing well. I had that crappy iron since I was like 12.

[GorillazMiko]

I am 13, and electronics is my favorite hobby, even funner than collecting U.S. coins/ paper money and stuff like that. I use my dad's soldering gun from Weller, I use all his solder and he gets mad. My friend has the RadioShack soldering iron (its blue) but I don't like those because the handle is too far from the tip, I want one of those wireless ones, but those are pretty expensive. I'm trying to save up money to do things on this site with LEDs and USB cords and resistors and stuff, but I'm low on money. So do you think the soldering iron from Radio Shack is terrible, and I should get something else before I make a terrible mistake and the world will blow up and I will have to cry people a river.

[Rectifier]

Haha, no way man. It's an all right iron. I was judging the cost by the cash people like me, in my 20s, blow on hobbies. Do NOT buy a wireless electrical iron though. They suck! The coldheats are utter crap, and the "regular ones" chew up batteries and don't get very hot. If you want cordless, you have to get a butane like mine. I bought the same thing when I was your age, and it served me well. If you barely have the cash for LEDs, don't waste it on fancy irons, much better to spend it on parts and stuff! By the way, what I used to do to get parts as a poor kid was dig old electronics out of recycle bins and dumpsters, particularly behind computer shops and desolder the parts. Sometimes you even find working stuff, too, or barely broken stuff you can have fun trying to fix with the scrap parts.

[GorillazMiko]

I might go behind some electronic stores like a RadioShack down the street, i just hope I don't get caught looking like a hobo haha. :-)

[GorillazMiko]

Nope. I got a new battery powered soldering iron at Radio Shack. It was on sale, usually it is $20.00 but now it was only $5. Too bad, the sale is over. Also, my dad got me a battery charger and 4 rechargeable batteries, all from Duracell, and the soldering iron uses 4, so when I'm done, I charge the batteries (it only takes 15 minutes) and then I put them back it. I got it yesterday. :-)

[GorillazMiko]

i tried doing this on my clothes cabenit (it was wood) but since it was standing up it was way to hard. i drew like all these cool things like really cool art, and it looks funny now :(

[Rectifier]

Oh no! You probably should have started with a piece of scrap wood... as I said, I even did a practice run on the back of my cheap-ass $1 sign board before I did the front for this instructable. And, as you found out, doing anything involving fine motor control standing up is really hard! You MIGHT be able to sand it out with a belt sander, if you didn't dig too deep while burning. On the side, I take it that you bought your Radio Shack soldering iron then? If you tried this with the gun... well... I specifically said not to try it with a gun :(