Lora Irish Winter Bird Feeder project started.

[nukebubba]

This is my sixth woodburning effort, and the most complicated by far. I followed the directions in Susan's thread elsewhere in this topic, and I finished the burning part today. I am deciding whether I will add the colors, because it looks pretty good as is. Thanks, Susan for all the detailed directions. I really learned a lot, and I got a lot of good experience in the various techniques of shading and detailing.

[shane_1]

Re: Lora Irish Winter Bird Feeder project started.

you done a realy nice job!

[Nancy-G]

Re: Lora Irish Winter Bird Feeder project started.

nuke - that's SO beautiful ... absolutely gorgeous.
It's so great that I have to vote that it not be colored in any way.... it just couldn't look any better.

[Gulf Coast Handyman]

Re: Lora Irish Winter Bird Feeder project started.

Very well done !

Dave

[nukebubba]

Re: Lora Irish Winter Bird Feeder project started.

Thanks for the compliments, Shane-1 and Nancy G. I made the project a little more difficult than I needed to because the original pattern I believe was 16" high, and I scaled it down to fit on an 8 x 10 piece of plywood I had. This made all the details somewhat smaller than the original, and there is a lot of small detail in the patterns. I also didn't have the microtip that Susan used, so I used very light touch strokes with the edge of the J-tip.

I also found that I was using much lower heat settings than in Susan's tutorial. I believe this is because she worked on a solid slab of basswood, while I worked on 1/8" plywood that I believe was poplar-faced.

Another thing I learned is that you can get better uniformity of shading with a "hover" technique using the J-tip (Colwood numbering). The hovering technique is when you bring the flat surface of the tip very close, but not touching the surface of the wood, and allow the wood to darken by radiative heat transfer, kind of like "toasting" the wood.

[jimmy joe]

Re: Lora Irish Winter Bird Feeder project started.

Fantastic job !

[nukebubba]

Re: Lora Irish Winter Bird Feeder project started.

Thanks for your good words, Dave.

[nukebubba]

Re: Lora Irish Winter Bird Feeder project started.

Sometimes people ask me "How long did it take you to do this?" Since I just finished the burning, let me try to estimate it.
Sanding the wood smooth to start - 15 minutes
Printing the pattern and transferring it to the wood - 45 minutes
Burning - approximately 2 hours per day for 10 days - 20 hours
This includes time spent running upstairs to the computer, cutting and pasting the instructions and pictures into a Word document, printing them, showing the work to wife and mother-in-law as I progressed, etc.

I took many breaks to bake bread, play with the dog, have lunch with my former workmates, etc. Depending on your work habits, it could take more or less time. All I would suggest is don't rush the work. Slow, meticulous, careful, and incremental are the key words.

[carver33]

Re: Lora Irish Winter Bird Feeder project started.

Beautiful job Vic! You are going to bring it to the meeting Tuesday so that I can get a good look, right?

[Nancy-G]

Re: Lora Irish Winter Bird Feeder project started.

I wish I were going to that meeting

[nukebubba]

Re: Lora Irish Winter Bird Feeder project started.

Yes, Bill, I'll be there. You can come too, Nancy-G

[teeburn]

Re: Lora Irish Winter Bird Feeder project started.

Very nice Vic. Thanks for sharing.