I'm working on a small lidded box basket illusion. We are using Faber-Castell Pitt artist pens for the coloring (my wife is doing the fine work). This is our first try at this. What are you using to finish your pieces?
So to the point, what finish would you put that would not be too flashy? I've thought of trying Danish oil, but not buffing. My test piece is in lime wood (which though soft beaded fine using the D-Way tools). I've put some sycamore maple aside for the next piece.
Thanks. As I progress on this first small piece I realize the amount of work invested. I must admit that it is magic to see the wood transform to "basket coil wraps". I am using small test pieces to try each step (like testing what setting for the pyrography pen, or what spacing looks "right").I would only experiment on practice pieces. There's too much work at stake to experiment on the real deal.
Thanks Mike for the suggestion; I do have a fair amount of scrap Norway spruce used in construction here which I use to explore new ideas. The problem is that pine doesn't bead well, burns-in at a different temperature setting for the OPTIMA pens, and doesn't absorb color in the same way. So my test pieces for this small project are in the same wood type. I've suspected that au naturel is the best option for the style I want, and Bill really confirmed that with his remarks. Frankly his work is beautiful. If this small piece works out (and my eyes & patience pass the test...), I may try something more ambitious for which I have put aside some sycamore maple. This first one is very educational...You could always turn a test piece out of pine and make pattern and color tests on this piece before making a mistake on your good one. We have a local truss company that gives away scrap pieces of dimensional pine lumber which I use for practice pieces, templates, molds and patterns etc.. Pine is really fast and easy to turn so you can quickly trial a new turning process on a test piece before you mess up on a good piece of wood.
That is why I practice on a Pine piece even when beading, when you switch to a good wood like maple the beading process is a snap! You can make all of the mistakes you want on a practice piece, sometimes you only have one shot at working a hard to source billet of wood. You can also turn a practice surface on a good piece of wood prior to hollowing for the final shape, this can provide for color testing and finish testing on the same type of wood.Thanks Mike for the suggestion; I do have a fair amount of scrap Norway spruce used in construction here which I use to explore new ideas. The problem is that pine doesn't bead well, burns-in at a different temperature setting for the OPTIMA pens, and doesn't absorb color in the same way. So my test pieces for this small project are in the same wood type. I've suspected that au naturel is the best option for the style I want, and Bill really confirmed that with his remarks. Frankly his work is beautiful. If this small piece works out (and my eyes & patience pass the test...), I may try something more ambitious for which I have put aside some sycamore maple. This first one is very educational...
Thanks for the information. On this first piece I did burn the grooves lightly. I understand your point of view, and will try differently on the next one. I must admit that I'm reluctant to grind my new beading tools. Could you add a photo of what you have done?I'll give away my other different approach to pyrography ... I don't burn the grooves between the beads. My reason for not burning the grooves is simple ... it isn't necessary because the natural shadows between the rows of beads look more realistic than the fake burned shadows. That's sort of an obvious statement, but it seems like everybody else does it probably because David Nittmann and Lincoln Sietzman did it that way. The downside to my approach is that it requires careful attention to making tight spacing between beads. I fine tune my beading tool by grinding the sides of the tool on the flat side of my Tormek stone so that I have very sharp points on the tool. This makes it sort of dangerous in the sense that it can quite easily rip up adjacent beads if I'm not careful when the tool touches the wood. This really gets hairy when the wood starts to warp a bit. For realism I like to make the baskets as thin as possible which almost guarantees it will warp a lot while being beaded.
Thanks for your sharing this. I wondered how you managed to burn those realistic wraps on your Basket Illusion No. 5.Bill, It is not a trade secret. I am still improving them. Please see attached a PDF of what I am doing. I started in January 2018 for my Panamint basket illusion (No. 5). On my modified tool I maintained the 1/8" but I changed the angle of the edges of the flute.
Bill, you mentioned using star sanding disks to add "wear and aging once the burning and coloring have been completed." Do you do this on all of your recent basket illusions? If so, what grit do you use for this? A light touch of 400 or something more serious?
Thanks. I'll have a look at this when I'm finishing up this first piece.I think it was 220 or maybe 180. I try to use a light touch and keep to disk moving so that I don't go to completely bare wood. It's a lot easier to do a bit more sanding if necessary than it is to go overboard with the sanding and then repeat the burning and coloring.
I would second Bill's comment. There are many different "tastes" in the basket work I've seen. I personally like the darkened look of using an oil and I often use darker woods. I use Watco danish oil, and after that has had a week or so to dry I spray two coats of Krylon acrylic matte finish and call it done. John, I see your location is France so you'll probably have to figure out which products are comparable. Getting the incredible detail with the coloring is something that takes a lot of practice. Don't be too frugal with the Faber Castelle pens. If you can't keep a good sharp writing tip on the brush point pens, use a new pen for the detail work and use the worn tips for filling in larger areas. The pens are relatively inexpensive compared to the time to fix mistakes. I've done about 20 of these and I haven't got there yet. But I will say that if the finish darkens the wood, it goes a ways toward hiding some of the imperfections. You can look at my album and see examples of what the oil does to the basket.I would only experiment on practice pieces. There's too much work at stake to experiment on the real deal.
Curtis, thanks for the info on your pieces. I'm just starting this and I find this small lidded box very educational (your recent lidded box gave me the idea to start with that form before trying a bowl). The Faber-Castell pens are great; the Superfine goes quite far into the recesses. However, I must admit that the scalpel has been useful for some corrections (obtaining precise hand movements is not easy). My wife wanted to do the coloring, she's younger and much more patient, but as a nurse she just hasn't had the time. As for living in France, yes I try to find equivalents when I can. However, the D-Way tools and Optima pens have no equivalents here, so I must order from the U.S. I appreciate all of the help from this forum to learn about the details.I would second Bill's comment. There are many different "tastes" in the basket work I've seen. I personally like the darkened look of using an oil and I often use darker woods. I use Watco danish oil, and after that has had a week or so to dry I spray two coats of Krylon acrylic matte finish and call it done. John, I see your location is France so you'll probably have to figure out which products are comparable. Getting the incredible detail with the coloring is something that takes a lot of practice. Don't be too frugal with the Faber Castelle pens. If you can't keep a good sharp writing tip on the brush point pens, use a new pen for the detail work and use the worn tips for filling in larger areas. The pens are relatively inexpensive compared to the time to fix mistakes. I've done about 20 of these and I haven't got there yet. But I will say that if the finish darkens the wood, it goes a ways toward hiding some of the imperfections. You can look at my album and see examples of what the oil does to the basket.
Thanks. Too bad the fine points are not reversible, as I have the impression that I'm using them a lot.The Faber Castell brush pens are reversible. So when the original end gets fuzzy and wide, take a pair of needle nose pliers and pull it out and swap ends. The fine point pends are not reversible.
Thanks John. Do you know if this spray is the same as the Krylon Matte Finish that Jean-Louis Meynier suggested (he uses this with the Faber-Castell pens)? These products are available here on the web, at twice the US price... I checked their site, but couldn't find out if this is acrylic varnish (equivalents here would be less expensive to test).I haven't done a basket illusion yet but it seems to me that Krylon Fixatiff would be a great finish. It basically doesn't look like you put any finish on except that it will change the color of woods like Cedar and darken some other woods but for the most part on maple and woods like that it won't change a thing. It can be buffed to create a little more shine than dead matte if necessary.
Thanks John. Do you know if this spray is the same as the Krylon Matte Finish that Jean-Louis Meynier suggested (he uses this with the Faber-Castell pens)? These products are available here on the web, at twice the US price... I checked their site, but couldn't find out if this is acrylic varnish (equivalents here would be less expensive to test).
Bill, thanks for following this. I appreciate your in depth arguments. I'm still waiting for an Optima pen delivery to complete the project, but I think it will be "au naturel" for now.Workable Fixatif is a soft finish that is often used as an intermediate layer when working with media such as chalk and charcoal which can smear if not protected. Matte finish is an acrylic lacquer finish that is intended to be a topcoat. However, I'll disagree with John about either one not affecting the final results. They both contain light scattering silica "optical flatterers" which, in effect, knock down contrast between tones ... which is a fancy way of saying it makes the results look hazy. If you're not the maker who sees both the before and after it might not be so obvious, but as the maker the change that these finishes cause are unacceptable to me.
Thanks Allyn, it was a good exercise to learn to use the search-able index, etc; I found the Harvey Meyer article "Basket Illusion Demystified" in October 2016, Vol 31, no 5, pages 36-44. Interesting article and a clear introduction to the herringbone. Bill has taken this a lot farther.John, if you are an AAW member, you can view all the articles from past issues. One article is my Harvey Meyer and it shows how to do the herringbone. Allyn
Jean-Louis, thanks for the pics, your method is quite clear... and the foie gras truffé (!!!) isn't a bad idea . I was sketching out a way to keep the motif "stable" when going around the rim, and your double green lines is a neat trick. The drinking straw "jig" looks very useful.John, I draw 2 temporary pencil lines (green) in the middle of the rim and then from these lines I burn the lines (red) as shown on the picture.
The spacing of the pencil lines will define the size of your herringbone pattern.