Heart to heart

Hi all,
Due to my imminent house move I haven't been doing much pyrography or scroll saw work, but during the week I managed a couple of heart shaped boxes.

They were both cut with the scroll saw from a piece of maple and have plywood bases. The first box, which it the larger of the two, has the message "I Love You" burnt into the lid with pyrography.

I quite like doing text with my pyrography iron and find that it is easier than it looks. I always do the outline of each letter first and then do very closely spaced lines inside each letter to fill them in.

Sometimes I make stuff for myself and sometimes I make things to sell and this box fitted into the latter category. I will be putting it up for sale on Folksy in the near future and imagined somebody as romantic as me buying it to present a loved one with a ring or other piece of jewellery.

The top of the box is pine and although some people say that pine isn't suitable for pyrography I would have to disagree because it worked fine for me. With this box I have made a change from my traditional varnish finish and gave it a coat of wax polish to enhance the grain and I think that it worked.

The second box was slightly smaller and the top was cut from a piece of tulip wood. Tulip wood is very light and takes pyrography well.

The design for the top was done by scanning the box and then copying and pasting small and smaller outlines of the heart into one drawing. I then when around the lines with the pyrography iron before shading in the alternate hearts. I tried to give the pyrography work a walnut burr look because that is one of my favourite woods.

The pyrography work on both boxes was done using a spoon tip. If you do try to do any work like this box it is important not to have your pyrography too hot because if you do, you will get over burn and that will spoil the contrast between the light and dark areas.

Hopefully, I will get another post in before I move and have to set up another broadband package That is something I'm really not looking forward to.