burning strategies

against my better judgement i ended up carving the royal palm and i am actually really happy with the way it came out all thats left is to put a finish on it and was thinkin about burning it does anyone know a real good technique or strategy to doing this

Hi Micky - I hope I can be of some assistance - I have tried a few ways of aging wood for tikis - you can try using a gas torch - which you should be able to grab from your local hardware - they are pretty cheap or another method I have used is to spray the wood black with a matt spray paint and then lightly sand it off - the black stays in the crevices and then stain over the top - you achieve an old look.

If you check out my thread you will see some of my latests pieces in the progress shots and they have been done this way.
Hope this helps you out - good carving.

Just a note of caution because Palm is so thready - less is more with the gas torch - better to start off with a light burn and build up - otherwise you could have yourself a crispy tiki.

Tiki Beat by Marcus
http://www.tikibeat.com.au

[ Edited by: tiki beat by marcus thorn 2006-08-29 17:53 ]

thank you very much...i will do that tomorrow as long as this tropical storm doesnt ruin my day or my car i have a 53 chevy rat rod that am forced to leave outside due to logs and engines takin up space in my garage ...i checked out your website very cool stuff i really liked the surf tiki what type of wood is that it looked amazing

What did you end up using to carve the royal palm? Inquiring minds want to know!

a plane to take of the thin bark and other than that jujst my trusty chisels and a mallet i have pictures but i cant figure out how to convert them to jpg format ... but i am really happy with the way he turned out