Pyrography Jewelry

Hi All,
In my last post I told you about how I was going to cut out the middle man when it came to buying my pyrography blanks by getting a scroll saw. Well it arrived on Monday and that is where the fun started. Although the saw comes almost ready to use it does need to be mounted onto something strong. Unfortunately the bench that I had earmarked for it wasn't quite right because with the scroll saw having a raised table it was too high.

This meant a rethink and I came up with the idea of using a good quality bedside table. Armed with this idea, I ventured out to a couple a charity shops in our area that have units full of furniture and in the second one I found just what I was after.

The scroll saw instruction said that a rubber mat should be placed under the saw before it is bolted down, so I popped into homebase and bought a carpet tile that did the job very well and damped out any vibration that there might have been.

Anyway, I drilled four big holes in the table and used several angle brackets strategically placed to make sure it didn't collapse under the weight of the saw which weighs in at a massive 60lb. The whole operation took the whole of one afternoon, but I was pleased with my work when it was all bolted down securely and ready to use.

I think I should mention at this point that, according to the books and the experts, a dust extractor should always be used when scroll sawing. I use an extractor when doing my pyrography so that seemed quite reasonable. Well it was to a point, but the extractor that is used for pyrography is a completely different kettle of fish to the extractor that is used for scroll sawing.

So with my saw all set up, I just awaited the delivery of the dust extractor so that I could get sawing and at that point I will leave the second part of this story to my next post and get back to the pyrography.

Well I say get back to the pyrography; it's my wife's actually because I haven't done any. At the moment she is knocking all sorts of crafty stuff out. If William Morris was still about I'm sure he'd sent her a telegram and ask her to knock up a few rolls of wall-paper for him.

On the pyrography front, she has made herself a gorgeous necklace with some wooden beads and used her pyrography iron to burn a hare into a wooden pendant. She then enhanced the pyrography with acylic paints and the results are quite stunning.

I will leave it there for now and in my next post I'll let you know what happened with the extractor from hell.