Wood Engraving

On my vacation my family visited Marblehead and I saw this guy engraving peoples names in drift wood with a magnifying glass, it caught my attention because it was so simple but so cool. When I got home from vacation I took a magnifying glass and started playing with it and to my surprise it was so easy to do and I didn't need any special training, but I'm sure you don't want to keep reading me talk/ type on and on so I'm just going to let you read on.

Step 1: What You Need

- A magnifying glass
- a piece of wood
- Sun glasses
- a sunny day

Step 2: Focusing the Glass

First you are going to want to tilt the flat side of the wood towards the sun, I used my foot to keep it tilted.
Take your magnifying glass and hold it so the glass is parallel the the wood  now move the magnifying glass in and out to find the point at which the magnifying glass focuses the sun to a tiny little dot.

Step 3: Engraving Shapes and Letters

Once you have the magnifying glass focused to a little dot the dot should be burning the wood, to make designs on the wood slowly move the magnifying glass around (moving the magnifying glass around will move the point at witch the suns rays are focused on).
I would suggest using a piece of scrap wood and practicing on that until you get good at it.

Step 4: Using a Template

If you want to do complex designs or pictures ypu can print off a picture and tape it to the wood your using, in my case I am using a log.
Once you have you picture taped in place you can focus you magnifying glass and start burning along the lines in small sections until the line turns white, when the line you burning along turns white and cracks you can blow on it and and it will leave you with a hole that you can burn a line in. After you burn the paper and blow on it you will need you go over the line so you can see the line in the wood.
Just do that all the way through and it will leave you with the picture on the wood.

Step 5: Finished

You can engrave you name into the wood, or just engrave pictures into the wood if your an artist, you can even engrave you address and put it on the front of your house.

If you like this instructable please subscribe to my channel
Thanks!

- Be sure you ware sunglasses because you can burn your cornea when looking at the point of contact where the magnifying glass is focused on

Comments

[Bban]

Nice. Don't catch your grass on fire!

[handymanKB]

this is how we used to kill ants as a kid. dont know why ive never though about this method since when using heat guns and solder irons to do similar. nice work.

[Ryan271828]

No way, that's sweet! At first glance I figured you laser engraved it, or got your flux capacitor to...do something super high tech. Using a magnifying glass - I dig your style!

[Nick-Smith-513]

Thanks

[Abigail02]

Wow! That is incredible!

[jessyratfink]

Whoa! Had no idea you could do this with just a magnifying glass. Very fancy! :)