Burning device and rules for working with it. Burnout Woodburner does not heat up

Burning device and rules for working with it

Today, the craftsmen in cutting not only create wonderful crafts, but also, if desired, give them an ornament with the help of a burner. In this article I will tell you how you can decorate your craft by giving it a beautiful ornament.

For burning it is necessary:

For work, you will need, first of all, a burning device. You can buy it in the store, or you can make it yourself.

All burners have approximately the same design:

1. Metal screen;

2. Plastic cap;

3. Needle;

4. Needle holder, consisting of a plastic base and two brass tubes pressed into it;

5. Power electrical wire;

6. Handle body.

The burner is powered by a 220 volt mains supply.

If you have an electric burner, then it is better to modify it a little for convenient operation. Replace the electric wire with a wire with a large cross-section (from 4 to 6 mm2), this will increase the heating of the needle.

When buying straight needles, for a burner, some bend them, some make them sharp, depending on what patterns you want to make. It is best if the needle is bent at a 45 ° angle. This can be done with pliers. If you bend the needle, then when you work you will get a wide ornament. You can also make a flat needle in order to burn out delicate work, such as a painting. To do this, the tip of the needle must be carefully grinded off with straight files, then cleaned off the grinded surface with a fine-grained sandpaper.

In order for the ornament to turn out beautiful, it is not at all necessary to press hard on the needle, but slightly pressing it while making repetitive movements. It also happens: by pressing hard on the needle, a breakage occurs or, at best, it is bent.

If the file is broken, you must replace it with another one. Replacing the needle must be done carefully. Never change the needle while the burner is plugged in. To replace the needle, it is necessary to clean the remnants of a broken needle from the needle holder by unscrewing the screws with a small screwdriver. Then cut a piece of chrome wire 1 mm in diameter and no more than 2.5 mm in length, then bend it in half. The ends of the wire must be tinned with soldering acid, also called zinc.

If the file is bent, it is necessary to unscrew the needle locks, then pull the needle out and put it on a flat metal surface in order to straighten it with a small hammer.

Material preparation

The surface you have prepared must be processed. Before transferring the drawing to plywood, you need to strip it. After stripping the plywood, choose a simple drawing that you won't be working on for a long time. Check if the drawing fits the dimensions.

Required surface

For burning, species of deciduous small vascular trees are suitable: aspen, maple, alder and partly birch. It is best if the surface for the burner is pre-sanded with sandpaper. The surface must be free of defects and irregularities. After processing, the surface should be smooth, matte. If the material of the workpiece has light wood without shine, then this is a huge plus.

I tried to burn it out and I can say with confidence that it turned out very well! With the help of a burner, you can give the craft a special outline. For example, you can cut out a plank for a scorched picture. It will turn out very nicely.

Burning out

In the manufacture, design and decoration teaching aids, appliances, models, game equipment and various household items for last years burning (pyrography) became widespread. Burning is often used in Skillful Hands circles. It consists in applying various patterns, ornaments and inscriptions to the surface of wood, plywood or cardboard products using strong heating with hot metal pins or wires. When in contact with a hot metal, the surface layer of the material is charred. Depending on the temperature of the metal tip and the duration of contact, traces of greater or lesser depth remain on the surface of the product, colored in different shades of brown.

In "Skillful Hands" circles, burning is performed in the overwhelming majority of cases with the help of electric burners operating at a voltage of 2-3-4 volts. To obtain a current of such a voltage, school training step-down transformers, transformers from children's sets "Elektrokonstruktor" and others, suitable in voltage and power, are usually used. Depending on the latter, several electric burners can be connected to one transformer at once

Figure 1 shows the design of a homemade electric burner, proposed by the author and widely used in children's technical amateur circles. On a handle made of 5-6 mm plywood or a plank (A), two metal strips (B) are reinforced. A loop (B) made of nichrome wire 0.4-0.5 mm thick is attached to the free ends of these strips using small screws and nuts (usually wire from spirals to electric stoves is used for this purpose). The ends of the electrical cord are attached to the opposite ends of the strips, which is connected to the terminals of the transformer. When the transformer is connected to the network, wire B heats up, and its sharpened middle part is burned out. The glow of the wire of the electric burner should not be too strong, so that when touching the surface of the wood, there are no flashes.

Rice. 1. Electric burner

A- a pen; B- metal strips; V- loop of nichrome wire (all dimensions in millimeters). On the right, an electric burner connected to a step-down transformer

Rice. 2. Burning along the contours

When burning on wood and plywood, the best results are obtained when using softwood: linden, poplar and alder. On harder woods, such as birch or maple, the burnt pattern has a reddish tint. It is difficult to achieve the desired uniformity of depth and color of individual strokes on planks or plywood made of hard, porous species, as well as species in which soft layers alternate with hard ones (oak, ash, pine, spruce, larch).

The most common are burning along the contours (Fig. 2), burning with the transfer of shades of light and shade (Fig. 4) and silhouette burning - with continuous shading of silhouettes or background (Fig. 3). The so-called decorative burning is very often used - with sharply outlined contours and the same sharp and rich shadows.

Rice. 3. Silhouette burning Rice. 4. Burning out with the transfer of shades of light and shade

Rice. 5. Stencils and templates for burning

For burning, drawings from special albums are used, but most often graphic compositions are created according to the instructions of the head of the circle. When decorating the burning of various household items - frames, shelves, boxes, etc. - folk ornaments and motives are used.

Burning patterns are transferred to carefully cleaned and ground parts in the same way as for sawing.

So that the lines of the drawings do not turn out to be too bold, use copy paper that has already been in use.

When burning ornaments, many board games, puzzles and other crafts, when the same elements of the pattern have to be transferred to plywood many times, stencils and templates are widely used (Fig. 5).

The surfaces of products, finished with burnt patterns or contours, are usually varnished with light alcohol varnish or coated with wax paste. After burning, some homemade products are first painted and then varnished. For coloring, transparent watercolors, aqueous solutions of aniline dyes and colored ink are used.

Work rules

With a burning device:

1. Before use, straighten the burner wires and make sure they are not twisted at all times.

2. Do not operate the electric burner for more than two hours in a row. Take breaks every 30-40 minutes and ventilate the area.

3. Choose the brightest time of the day for work. Provide good lighting in the evening. The light should hit the material from the left.

4. If you make a small mistake, use a safety razor blade. You can only use a razor along the grain. Try to use it as little as possible.

5. Protect the surface of the material during work. Place a blank sheet of paper under your arm to avoid smudging your work.

A series of messages "":
Part 1 - Burning device and rules for working with it

The device has two modes of operation. In the first position of the switch " norm”(I), it operates at half power: about 30-35W. In the second " turbo"(II) - 65-70W. The yellow LED shines in both modes, red, only in the second. Indication LEDs are any, not bright ( AL307).

In order to make an electric burner, you will need a cheap (2-2.5 dollars) Chinese-made 50-60 W switching power supply (UPS) for halogen lamps. You can find them in furniture hardware stores or hardware stores.

Burner scheme

Schematic diagram of an electric burner based on ET

On the Internet, I met an alteration for the manufacture of a pulse soldering iron. In the case of a burner, minimal rework of the UPS is required.

First, remove the board from the case and desolder the output transformer. A lot has been written about these schemes, so I will not go into details. She copes well in the role of an electric burner. I will only say that bipolar transistors MJE13003 (TUVE13007) can be replaced with more powerful current - MJE13005, MJE13007(the last digit means the operating current). When choosing a UPS, you must take into account the fact that it must not have short circuit protection!

So, having removed the transformer from the board, it must be disassembled. A lot has also been written about disassembling ferromagnetic transformers. But, I will share my experience. First of all, remove the film and remove the glue at the core joint with a knife. After that, heat the water in a small container to a boil. But do not immediately throw it into boiling water, but first heat it with warm water. Due to the fact that the quality of these trances is very low, they can split. Therefore, after warming it up a little, we dip it into boiling water, leaving it there for a few seconds. The procedure can be repeated, and try to loosen the winding body, and also walk with a knife along the seams of the ferrite halves. In the end, you will be able to disassemble it, but do not rush, do everything with caution. In my case, even breaking such a trance, I did not despair, and connected the four pieces of the core with duct tape. Some glue the split slices, but even without that it works great anyway, the future is tightly compressed with adhesive tape.

Having disassembled the transformer, we remove the secondary winding, and in its place we wind 3-4 turns of a stranded wire with a cross section of 2.5-4mm2. For this, an electric cable (mains) is suitable. The insulation is preliminarily removed, and in its place, a heat-shrinkable cambric of suitable sizes is put on. Why Heat Shrink Tubing? Because it takes up less space in relation to the cable insulation. Now, we wind four turns, with a branch from the third. The voltage on the last turn will be approximately 9.0-10.5V. It remains to assemble the transformer back, and fish out the conclusions, as can be seen in the photographs.

It's time to tackle the burner housing. For this we need an aluminum furniture leg. Yes, yes, furniture again! It is very cheap (costs less than a dollar), but most importantly, it consists of 1 mm thick aluminum. Thus, the case will serve as a thermal sink for transistors that get very hot. Square foot height = 100mm. The issue of the front panel is also being resolved. To do this, disassemble the leg, and leave a plastic plug from which we cut off a part - so that all the components of the product fit. Further, the radiator for transistor keys is also aluminum.

I used a 5mm plate heat sink. It already had threaded holes, which I later used. But if you find a copper plate, it will definitely serve as the best heat sink. Also, you can use any other suitable size radiator. In addition to this radiator, I have connected an aluminum U-shaped profile- you guessed it, also a furniture one, which fits tightly into the square profile of the case.

The radiator must be in close contact with the body! This way the heat will be distributed evenly, more efficiently throughout the case, without the need for bulky heat sinks. The U-shaped profile is connected to the radiator plate with a small gap (2-3 mm) through small washers and then we screw this "sandwich" to the plate included in the impulse kit. Transistors and the board must be attached through an insulator, also from the UPS. The body of the burner should preferably be grounded.

Do not forget that the device is connected to a mains voltage of 220V, so we take all safety measures during assembly and commissioning!

Now, we drill holes in the plastic front panel, under the mode switch of the electric burner - under the wires and under the LEDs red and yellow glow. We connect LEDs with limiting resistors with hot melt glue, as you can see in the photo.

Next, we twist the switch and solder all the wires (see figure). Switch - P2T-21(Soviet-made, maximum switched power up to 660 W with active load). It is necessary to use the most powerful toggle switch as possible, otherwise the contacts will overheat! The maximum power of the burner reaches 70 watts.

To the body, as legs (anti-slip), we glue self-adhesive cork or silicone (available from glaziers and furniture makers). As a handle, I used a ready-made burner handle industrial production... And if you make it yourself, then a handle from a burnt-out soldering iron will do. Or we cut it out of PCB, wood with a fluoroplastic tip of suitable thickness. Fastening for nichrome - the terminals of the electrical blocks are just suitable for these purposes.

I found nichrome for handpieces with a diameter of 0.8-1.5 mm on the radio market. Suitable for different heating devices. It must be bent as in the photographs and the tip flattened with a hammer. I made two types of tips: one of millimeter nichrome for burning and cutting, the other one and a half millimeter for more rough work. Accordingly, the second will effectively heat up in a more powerful mode of operation of the device (turbo).

The wire for the electric burner must be selected with a large cross section and the most flexible. Otherwise, it will warm up. Naturally, the electric burner will work intermittently, about 15-30 minutes.

First, the efficiency is very low, which leads to high heat losses. And secondly, the handle will warm up, which forces you to work in cycles with it. For more convenient use, I advise you to adapt a push-button pedal (from a sewing machine or from some kind of machine) or a push-button power switch, etc. I did not make additional holes in the case or radiator for heat dissipation. This is up to you, depending on the radiator used.

The device is very easy to manufacture, thanks to ready-made solutions to build it. It can be made by any beginner with minimal electronics skills. The main thing is to follow the safety rules when working with it. After all, the temperature of the tip reaches 500-600 degrees.

If you make an electric burner for a child, then the presence of an adult when working with him is a must. Hope it brings joy and creative success! ).

Discuss the article ELECTRIC BURNER

Prepare the necessary tools. To get started with pyrography, you will need a set of basic tools. After you complete a few drawings, you may want to expand this set, although the following tools will suffice:

Find a suitable piece of wood for pyrography, preferably turn the wood surface over with the smoother side up. The hardness of the tree ranges from 1 to 10, with 1 being the softest tree (such as balsa) and 10 being the hardest (such as pterocarpus). If you are just starting to burn, choose a soft wood. Hard wood is expensive, heat resistant and usually dark in color. On the other hand, soft wood is cheaper, easier to burn, and lighter in color, allowing for a wider range of contrasts. Try the following softwood varieties:

• Pine
• Birch
• Ash

Probably most of the Soviet children tried to burn wood in one way or another, many had domestic pyrographs such as "Vyaz" or "Pattern", or encountered them at school during labor lessons. I am no exception, I had a "Vyaz" burner with which I ruined a lot of plywood)

At first, I basically burned pictures redrawn from chewing gum inserts, then I began to invent something of my own, but like many children's hobbies, this was at some point postponed and forgotten.

Recently I remembered this topic again and found my old burner, but it turned out that the needles were not preserved. This is where the epic began.

Instead of buying needles online or looking in hobby stores and actually doing some burning after that, I decided to act like an 80-level procrastinator, i.e. to postpone the process for the sake of which everything was started, switching to another, seemingly useful but leading away from the original goal - I began to read about modern pyrographs, look at diagrams of homemade options and almost started assembling one of the ones I liked :)

But since the main quality of a level 80 procrastinator is "You can't just take and finish something to the end," I limited myself to a half-hearted solution - I made a new "handle" for "Vyazya". No photographs of this horror have survived, but the idea was simple: an oblong piece of wood that is comfortable to hold in your hand, with a drilled hole through which a wire was passed; a pair of clamps from an ordinary electrical outlet are screwed from the working end with self-tapping screws, into which a needle-loop made of nichrome wire is clamped with screws.

As a result, it was not at all convenient to use it, besides, my wire turned out to be too thin. And I went to the local radio market for reconnaissance, I did not find the necessary pieces of iron there, but suddenly I found needles and a "professional" (as the seller dubbed it) burner. I immediately bought a needle (it looked like it was just supposed to fit for "Vyazya") and leaving the store I thought about it. Remembering how quickly the handle of the old burner heats up, how often it stupidly lacks power, I made up my mind and took the "professional" one.
Quotation marks are not casual here. The fact is that I came across various reincarnations of this device on the internet, sometimes it is "German", sometimes "Polish" (perhaps some kind of oem is really sold under different brands), but in any case it was something a little better than "Vyaz" "which I had no more desire to finalize.

Megadevice

At home, I was convinced that the purchased needle still fits the Elm, so, in principle, I now had as many as two burners. But after playing a little, I realized that the Elm handle heats up very quickly, the cord from it is very hard and it is not convenient to work.
The new device had a removable handle (well, it's "professional" :)) which was undoubtedly a plus.

(the needle in the photo is not native)

The handle was not comfortable for me, and it did not heat up so quickly, but it was too thick and I could not get used to it. Meanwhile, the information pulled from the network gradually poisoned me with the poison of temptation ... well, do you remember? Level 80 ...
In short, instead of burning with what we have, I began to think about where to get a comfortable handle. Of course, there were options on Ibei and other Amazons, but 1) it is not known in advance how comfortable it will sit in the hand 2) it would be necessary to remake the cable from a "tulip" to a "plug" 3) wait at least a month until it arrives

As a result, I thought, "Well, how many of that handle is there ... I'll make it even better myself" :)
Then I roughly imagined how it should look and faced a dilemma: under which needles to fasten? The fact is that the needles on the "Vyazi" and on the megadevice are a nichrome loop, the ends of which are pressed into brass tubes, at the same time, you can buy nichrome wire of the required diameter and make any needles from it, but then it is more convenient to clamp directly under the wire.
What can I say, such uncertainties always lead me first into a long analysis of the pros and cons, and then just into a stupor :)

As a result, I decided to start with making a pen for the existing needles, and then we will see.
Initially, my idea was as follows: make a holder from some heat-resistant dielectric in which to fix the brass mounts for the needle, and screw the holder itself to the handle body. Having a lathe, one could easily grind the entire handle entirely from a suitable material, but what is not, is not there.

In search of material, I went to Starokonka, the candidates were: textolite, ebonite and fluoroplastic. While circling the market for a long time, I bought an ebonite stick and a small stub of a fluoroplastic billet, where I hoped to find a brass tube for attaching the needle, but it wasn’t there - there were no such thin tubes.
At home, I scooped up all my stocks of near-electric junk and among them I found several brass sleeves with a screw thread at the end, I don't remember what they were left of, but something very familiar.

Now it was necessary to decide on the material of the holder and fix the tubes in it. The fluoroplastic is certainly good, but I was afraid that it would be too soft and it would not be possible to fix the tubes hard enough, so I sawed off a small disk from an ebonite stick and began to drill holes in it, in general, somewhere on the third disk I managed to drill more or less evenly and do not split the part. Two holes for brass tubes and two thin holes for attaching to the body.
And then a real collective farm began, corks from champagne and more were found in the bins, a steel tube of unknown origin was also found there, my plan was simple: drill a hole in the corks along the axis, insert a tube into this hole into the tightness through which pass the wires, and then the holder, having connected the wires, pull it with long bolts to the large plug.

Unfortunately, for some reason I did not photograph the process, I think because everything was done in fits and starts when there was time.

Final version

Holes are drilled in the brass tubes and a thread is cut, bolts are screwed into them with which the needle is clamped. In old pens, hard wires were very enraged, so in my own I used an audio wire that usually connects speakers to an amplifier.
A separate story with plugs, I could not find a "banana" plug () in any radio store in the city, again, a cord from an old Soviet tester was found in the bins, the plugs were killed there, but as a temporary option they fit, and the normal ones were ordered on ibey.

Larger:

On the one hand, the handle is comfortable, but the standard needle is somehow too far from the hand. along the way, the technology of "packing" homemade needles into brass "legs" was tested. Since it is not realistic to find thin brass tubes on the same old frame, 3mm brass wire was bought in colored scrap, pieces of a couple of centimeters are cut off and small holes are drilled into them from the end with a 1 ... 1.2mm drill into which you then need to insert the tips of a homemade needle and rivet with a hammer, it doesn't look very good (see the photo of a standard handle from a "professional" one), but it works.

Despite the fact that the pen issue seemed to be resolved, I did not calm down and made the second option (well, it was necessary to close the gestalt :)) with fastening for pure wire needles. I actually made this pen only because when I gutted the cable from the old tester to the connectors, I thought that his probes were an ideal workpiece for attaching the needle - they already have a thread and there is where to solder the wire. I just sawed off the sharp ends, drilled thin holes along the axis (the needle will be inserted into them) and drilled the threaded holes for the clamp screws

In general, the construction of the 2nd handle is similar to the 1st, except for attaching the holder to the body - here I used two trims of bicycle spokes

Needles. To understand what to use for which task, I made several needles of different shapes, nmchrom metal is soft, you can easily rivet with a hammer, then sharpen with a file

But to be honest with the needles, I have not figured out yet, maybe everything from the fact that you need to bother less and burn more?)

By the way, returning to the disadvantages of my burner, it has a rather high temperature at a minimum, it seems to me, when I want to slightly tint something, sometimes I burn it out - uneven spots are obtained. In addition, it starts to buzz unpleasantly somewhere after 30 minutes of work, I haven't disassembled it yet .. I don't know, maybe it's worth pouring some kind of varnish on the windings?

Maybe an hour will come and I will buy something really comfortable or I will gash a self-propelled gun with anime and frame (read with LATR and a powerful rheostat), but while it is quite possible to live with what is, I would still force myself to do something more often