Introduction: Wood Burning With a Magnifying Glass

About: Architectural Designer and Volunteer Firefighter

This Instructable is going to teach you how to make an awesome, creative gift or artwork with absolutely no artistic ability. 

Step 1: Materials

The only materials needed are:
Wood-be creative, make a small jewelry box or tool box and wood burn something on that. 
Magnifying glass-any size really, but the bigger, the better(and faster)
Stencil of what your going to woodburn-Print it out
Pencil-To trace your stencil to the actual wood 
Dark Shades-Protect your eyes 

Step 2: The Stencil

Find a stencil, silhouette, clip art, or something that can be easily woodburned.
Print it out to the size you want
If you don't have a printer, use your artistic ability and draw it straight onto the wood
If you aren't artistic and don't have a printer, hold up a piece up paper to your computer screen very gently, Dont press hard but lightly trace the stencil. 


You should now have a stencil on paper.

Step 3: Getting the Stencil on the Wood

To get your stencil to the wood easily, place the paper on top of the wood and press down on your pencil while drawing over the stencil and paper. This leaves you with the stencil indented in the wood. Go over the indents with pencil so that you can see your stencil easily on the wood.

Step 4: Tan, Relax, and Get Burning

Here comes the fun part of the project, the woodburning. Get on your shades, get your magnifying glass, and get going. 
Raise your magnifying glass up a couple of inches from the wood, find the focal point, and let the sun do the work. 
All you have to do is steer the magnifying glass.
Depending on how much dark areas are in your stencil and size of the magnifying glass, the time required for this varies. 
In any case, grab your radio and tanning lotion or sunblock and get going.
After finishing them you can polyurethane them for a nice look.
Here are some of my creations (I like the joker :] )

Thanks for taking the time to read my Instructable, I hope this ignites your creativity and gets you to make some awesome art for around the house or gifts for other people. People are always asking me to make these for them, so you could make some money off of this too. 

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