Best Woods for Chemical Wood Burning

In my test I did two stencils; one is text, and the other a mountain range.

The woods tested (numbered in 1st picture above):

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1. Pine
2. Hemlock
3. Poplar
4. Cedar
5. Whitewood*
6. Oak

*I am not a wood expert, but my understanding is that white wood is a generic term for cheap wood, and the “whitewood” I have available at my store may be different than what you get (aka different wood may get different results). From a quick search, spruce, fir, and pine are the most common “white wood” varieties due to how quickly they grow.

As a quick summary, I would rank the results as the following:

Great for wood burning:

• Pine (sharp burn lines, very hard to burn areas you don’t want burned, high contrast between burned and non-burned areas)
• Hemlock (sharp burn lines, relatively hard to burn areas you don’t want burned)
• Whitewood (sharp burn lines, relatively hard to burn areas you don’t want burned, and $cheap$)

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Okay for wood burning:

• Poplar (sharp burn lines, but easy to burn areas you don’t want to)
• Cedar (does not burn as dark as other woods, is relatively easy to burn in areas you don’t want to, is a bit blurrier than most of the other woods tested.

Not so great for wood burning:

• Oak (porous wood makes it easy for bleeding of stencil causing blurry lines, does not burn easily and because of that is easy to burn in areas you don’t want to)

A more detailed explanation of each wood:

Pine: A very white wood, so you get great contrast between the wood an areas burned. It is naturally smooth, so it is easy to apply the stencil with minimal risk of bleeding of the paste into areas you don’t want it. Pine also appeared to be the hardest wood to burn in areas without the ammonium chloride solution/paste, meaning that there is minimal risk of burning areas that you don’t want to burn

Hemlock: Not quite as white as the pine, but still gives sharp lines and good contrast with the burned areas. You need to be a bit more careful about burning areas you don’t want to, but it still does a pretty good job. I didn’t thoroughly test this, but I believe that hemlock will stain better than pine (if you want to do that in a project).

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Whitewood: Very similar results to the pine (and that might even be because it’s a cheaper grade of the other pine that I tested). Good contrast, sharp lines, and relatively hard to burn areas adjacent to the pattern you are trying to burn. This also has the added benefit of being the cheapest option! It is a slightly “uglier” wood than the other ones I tested, but if you are going for a “rustic” look, this would probably be the best choice.

Poplar: Gives nice sharp lines comparable to the above woods, but is easier to burn in areas you don’t want to. But it still can be done. If you look at the attached pictures, my text test has many burned areas, but my mountain range test did not have nearly as much. This is because I did the text first, then the mountain range, so I was much more careful about not pointing the heat gun at one area for too long.

Cedar: Does not burn as dark as the above woods, and it is easier to burn areas you don’t want to. I found the wood does not give quite as sharp of lines as the others. Though not as good as other woods tested, it still gave passable results, which is why I gave it an “okay” rating.

Oak: I found this wood rather porous, which resulted in the blurriest lines of all woods tested. Oak was also the most resistant to burning, and not in a good way. By the time I got the areas with ammonium chloride to start burning, the adjacent areas of the wood were starting to burn too. While the results were still legible, there are better options, so I don’t recommend using this.

Hope you found this tutorial helpful in picking out which wood to use for your project!

Source: https://gardencourte.com
Categories: Recipe