Pyrography 101 Tutorial Burning Gourds

I am not going to attempt to teach you everything about gourds but this should offer some basics for burning on gourds. As a pyrographic artist and instructor for many years my goal has always been to share my passion for pyrography with anyone interested in learning. One of the most important things I have stressed over the years is safety. Burning on materials that are safe to avoid health and safety problems in the future.

Over the years I have heard so many people experimenting with pyrography burning on things such as acrylic which is a man-made product not intended to burn. Since getting more involved in the gourd world I continue to hear about new techniques popping up to simply the process of transferring patters. Simplifying is great as long as it does not put you at risk in the process.

So, my goal here is to provide you with some basic information about burning on gourds as well as safety issues.

Please check out my tutorial on painting and decorating gourds.

Burning on Gourds

I started dabbling in gourds back in 2000 after discovering a gourd farm near where we lived in Texas. I didn't know much about them back then but they offered a unique medium for pyrography. Little did I know at the time that there were artists all over the country burning and decorating gourds. It seemed that most were merely using a burner to outline the design and then paint, stain or dye the design. I figured I could probably do some really nice designs on them just with a woodburning tool so, I did some experimenting with my burning tool.

My first creation was a bowl gourd using a Petroglyph design of New Mexico mimbres style figures. Living in New Mexico for many years was already starting to influence my art and would continue to do so.

I had no idea what I was doing at the time but I used this gourd as a means of experimenting with different techniques on the gourd.

Since I was trying to create an "old" look to this gourd I left the gourd "mottled" rather than trying to cover it up with pain, dye or stain. The designs at the top were created with a single temp burner and a detail burner with different tips for the other designs.

I used a writing tip (Colwood "C" or the Razertip 9S) for most of the designs to create a textured look and a spear shader (Colwood "E45" or the Razertip "HD5MP") for other parts of it such as the heart design on the lizard. It was a simple and a rather easy gourd to do and when I finished my website in 2002 I put it on the site. Al was still working for the VA and he let some of his friends in Washington DC know of the site and within a matter of days I received a message from someone wanting to buy that gourd. Still in my recuperative period it was a real boost to my self-esteem and it inspired me to go on and do a few more gourds.

A word of caution, if you are going to use any color on your gourd do it AFTER you do all of the woodburning. It is not safe to burn over paints, stains, dyes or varnish (any kind of finish for that matter). Paints and finishes have chemicals in them and burning over them can cause health problems. So do all your burning first and then you can color to your hearts content.

Cleaning the woodburning pen tips

One of the most important things you must do when burning is cleaning the tips on your woodburning pens. Nothing will ruin a pen or your burning faster than dirty tips.

If you have a single temperature (craft style) burner with brass tips you can use a brass brush to gently clean the tips. Brass is a soft metal so don't get too over zealous when you do this. You can also use a straight-edged razor to scrape off the heavy build-up of carbon. Clean frequently when working on gourds so you don't get stray sparks from the carbon.

If you have a detail burner, such as Colwood, Razertip, Optima that have polished tips you should start with a straight-edged razor to clean off the excess carbon and then with a COOL tip you can use a strop and aluminum oxide to polish. DO NOT do this while the pen is hot. Clean frequently when working on gourds so you don't get stray sparks.

For detail burners that do not have polished tips please follow the manufacturers instructions for proper cleaning.

How to clean your detail burner tips:

I'm always asked how to clean the tips and it's a great question. I will address the proper procedure for cleaning woodburning pen tips that are polished. For pen tips that are not polished please be sure to check with the manufacturer for their recommended methods of cleaning the tips.

If you tips are heavily caked with carbon I recommend you start with a straight-edged razor or the Razertip tip cleaner and gently scrape off excess carbon. You can do this while the pen is hot or after it has cooled. For the next step be sure your tip is cool. Once you have cleaned off any excess carbon use a strop (leather or composite) with aluminum oxide powder.

I tend to burn mostly on clean woods that are free of oil so regular cleaning with the strop and aluminum oxide is all I need to keep my tips clean and carbon free. When burning on gourds or leather I start with a razor.

How to use the strop and aluminum oxide:

Make sure your tip is cool. Add just a TINY pinch of aluminum oxide to one edge of the strop and run the tip across the powder just a few times, then on a clean area of the strop run the tip over the clean area to remove the remaining powder and gently polish the tip. You need to do this only a few strokes. I then wipe it on my denim jeans (you may want to get a patch of denim to keep on your Cleaning & polishing the tip with a strop work area) to clean off excess polish. Remember your really just polishing, so you don't need to try to remove all the discoloration. These tips stay cleaner than many other brands so if you are burning at a moderate temperature on wood you can probably burn longer between cleanings. If you are burning on gourds or leather you will need to clean more frequently.

If you need extra help cleaning off carbon and using the aluminum oxide and strop don't remove all the carbon, gently scrape it with a straight edged razor. That should remove all excess carbon.

When burning on gourds, leather and certain woods you will probably have to clean the tips more frequently.

Remember that proper cleaning maintains the life of the tips, makes burning easier and your finished burning cleaner and keeps them in factory-new condition. If you clean the tips regularly you will not have much difficulty maintaining them.

Safety and Transferring patterns to gourds

Since I have gotten back into gourds and participate in a couple of online gourd forums I hear all kinds of things. Some great tips are given but others leave me shuddering in disbelief.

A couple of those tips I feel it necessary to discuss here. Since I started teaching woodburning I have always stressed the importance of safety and when it comes to burning on gourds it's no different.

Press and Seal

Recently I started hearing people recommend using press and seal (a plastic wrap) to transfer patterns. I thought this was an interesting idea and helpful because it adheres to the round surface but when I heard that people are actually burning through it I almost fell off my chair. Let me add mention again that Press and Seal is PLASTIC. This is made from chemicals and is NOT intended for burning and it is NOT safe.

Many years ago when someone started teaching her students to burn on acrylic (PLASTIC) mirrors I contacted a manufacturer of plastic materials to discuss the safety of burning on plastics. His first response was "what are you crazy". Those words still ring in my ear. I have reported all of his remarks regarding this issue on many forums over the years and to this day this lady is still teaching her students to burn on acrylic (now she refers to them as Lucite and safe even though Lucite is PLASTIC) mirrors. What that man said was that if plastic in any shape, form or name is burned it will emit toxic fumes. So my question to you is this...is the ease of transferring a pattern that important that you risk killing yourself?

Masking tape

The other aid to transferring patterns I have heard about is masking tape. Well I have been using masking tape for years to attach my pattern but never considered burning through it. When I heard that people again were doing it I had to check this out too. Sure enough when I called 3M they basically gave me the same response and said that it is safe when used as suggested by the manufacturer only as a means of adhesive. So, again I ask people why would you want to burn through tape which has glue on it and can cause health problems?

When I started teaching the gourds kind of took a back seat to other obligations but now that I have some time I have been asked to help others learn more about gourds.

Gourd Decorating Tutorial

For more general gourd decorating help please go to my tutorial, Gourd Painting and Decorating Tutorial. I will be talking about things such as ink dyes, paint and many other things other than burning on gourds.

Nedra

More Coming Soon!

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Updated 11/3/08

GOURD PYROGRAPHY TUTORIAL