Over half of the wood Halloween tombstones we’ve sold from our shop have been sent out with our “RIP” burn treatment. We have had several requests to do custom woodburning on the faces since we started selling them. This article does a great job on learning the process to perfect your own custom designs!
Our original intention on what we build and sell was to allow people of all skill levels to get into customization on their own. So here we are, with an article on how to burn your wood holiday decoration, whether it’s a Halloween tombstone or one of our blank holiday signs/decorations. The process may surprise you as you’ll be able to do some really cool things that are much easier than you may have thought.
While you can dive right in with either of these methods by free-handing your design, we recommend making a template or stencil first to ensure a better outcome. We posted this article on how to make your own stencils. Once you have your templates ready, all you need to do is choose one of the methods we’ve listed here and start burning stuff!
Oh yeah, it likely goes without saying, but remember safety first! Whether working with a woodburning tool or heat gun, you’ll be using things that are extremely hot and can burn you. Make sure you do this in a well-ventilated area. The fumes from the burn can be annoying, irritating and not good to constantly breathe in. If you have no other option but to do this indoors, work next to an open window with a fan blowing the fumes and smoke out of the window. This will also greatly reduce the chances of a smoke alarm going off (learn from our mistakes…LOL).
#1 – Pyrography Marker & Heat Gun (Simple & Easy Results)
A Pyrography Marker allows you to simply write directly on the wood surface, hit the colored area with a heat gun, and enjoy the results of instantly burned. Pyrography markers are available on many sites, including Amazon. We have personally used one of the cheap ones we bought off Amazon. To our surprise, it worked well. Here are some examples of what they look like:
Pyrography markers work due to a “chemical burn.” From what we’ve observed in playing with this method, it appears to be a level or two above a layer of paint on the wood. Meaning, the chemically burned area seems to bond to the wood better than paint. We haven’t had this method wear off even after a few seasons of display for Halloween. If it were to wear off, it does seem like you could touch up spots with the marker. Then, hit it with a heat gun again and refresh part of a burn if you needed.
To get started, use the pyrography marker to trace the outline of your stencil letters and/or shapes onto your wood Halloween tombstone. Then you can remove the stencil and just fill in the remaining space you want to be burned. This also allows you to reuse the stencil, especially if you burn other tombstones with the same design.
When using any marker on old wood, pressing too hard can shred the marker tip pretty fast. Reclaimed wood is rough on all kinds of things. Take your time with medium/light pressure tracing and filling in the areas, then go back and dab the marker in the spots you need to fill in. You’ll definitely need to do this between any raised wood grain areas.
Once you have finished coloring in all of the areas you want to be burned, use a heat gun to heat up and burn the colored areas. You’ll see it start to darken up and burn quickly. Once it’s cooled down, you’re ready to go! If you don’t have a heat gun, it may work with a hairdryer on the highest heat setting if you hold it in one spot for a long period of time. If the hairdryer doesn’t work, get a heat gun that can do at least 750 degrees Fahrenheit. This will definitely do the trick!
Here’s a finished sample of a pyrography marker burn. Up close, it looks a little bit like it was drawn with a sharpie, but doesn’t bleed on the wood as a sharpie does.
#2 – Woodburner Tool (Best Results)
Who doesn’t love something in the shape of a pen that can burn stuff? With countless woodburning tools on the market, it’s quick and cheap to get started. Heck, some of the cheap soldering irons that aren’t even sold as wood burners come with different tips you can use for woodburning. Here are a couple of samples of what’s out there. And no, we aren’t sponsored by any of these or getting any sort of commission. We’re just providing samples to help you see some of the cheaper options that are available:
Woodburner
Woodburner
We have both of these and use them on projects here and there. They’re both low-wattage and will take some patience to work with, but you can’t really complain since they’re less than $25. The Harbor Freight tool costs $10. They even sell the same tool without the tips as their basic soldering iron for around $5 or $6.
We won’t dive into woodburning techniques during this post, but Pyrocrafters has created a great YouTube video that provides great tips and techniques in 5 minutes. She also has a video showing one of a professional woodburning tool that outright burns through a piece of wood (and yeah, we definitely want to get that woodburner someday…LOL). Whether you get started on the cheap or drop some serious cash on a pro woodburner, this method is still easy to do with great results.
Start by plugging in your woodburning tool so it has plenty of time to heat up (usually takes several minutes for the cheap ones). Then, trace the outline of your stencil onto your wood Halloween tombstone with a pencil or marker. If using a marker, the same tip applies here as in method #1…pressing too hard when you trace can shred the marker tip pretty fast.
Once you have traced the template onto your tombstone, it’s just a matter of burning the outline of the letters or shapes, and then keep burning to fill it in. This will produce much more smoke and fumes than the first method. Please reference the whole ventilated area thing we mentioned earlier.
If this is your first time using a woodburner, we strongly recommend doing a few burn tests on a scrap piece of wood. If you don’t have any scrap wood lying around, you could always use the bottom of the base that came with the tombstone or holiday decoration or even test on the back of it. Pay attention to how the tip is burning, and even indenting the wood as it burns. After doing a few tests, you’ll start to get the hang of how fast you can push the tool to burn.
If you’re using a cheap, low-wattage woodburner, just know that patience is welcomed. As the tool burns the wood, it loses heat and will require additional time to keep heating up so the tip is hot enough to burn. You’ll need to find the right pace of moving the tool to keep making progress on the burn without going so fast that you’re having to back-track on areas that didn’t get burned to your liking. The patience will pay off though! There’s just something about the burned reclaimed wood look that looks crazy authentic like it was done a hundred years ago. Here’s a sample of what this looks like:
Really, there’s not much to it other than that! In our opinion, the woodburner tool produces the best results of these two methods, since it can actually indent the wood depending on how hard you press and how slow you move the burner tip. This also means it will last the longest of these two methods, because you’re directly burning the wood and not just a chemical layer from a pyrography marker. However, when a burned wood Halloween tombstone or holiday decoration is used seasonally, either of these methods will last for several years.
We hope this was helpful and would love your feedback in the comments. Be sure to send us pics of your finished work so we can see it!
Happy burning!
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