This is a simple and pleasing art and one that is easy to practice. It gets its didactic name from the

Greek word pyro, which means fire, and graph, to write, that is writing with fire, only in pyrography you draw with fire instead.

The Necessary Tools

The chief tool you need is called an etching tool. This is formed of a piece of iron, copper or platinum with a curved point which is heated in a flame until it is red or white hot. When it is hot you press the curved point against the wood upon which you have drawn the design and it burns the lines into it.

Fig. 26. The Tool Used For Pyrography

A- The Etching Tool

B- Complete With Handle

How to Make an Etching Tool

Get a piece of copper rod 1/4 inch in diameter and 3 inches long; file one end down to a point to the shape shown at A and B in Fig. 26 and put a file handle on the other end.

How to Make an Alcohol Lamp

The etching tool must be heated in either an alcohol or a Bunsen flame. You can make an alcohol lamp of an ink bottle that will serve the purpose very well. Make a hole in the cork about 1/4 inch in diameter and make a tin tube 1 inch long that will fit it snugly. Braid a wick of string and put it through the tin-tube; fill the bottle with alcohol and your lamp is done. If you can get gas you can use a Bunsen burner15 which makes a hotter flame and is less trouble.

A Better Outfit

A good outfit which has a platinum pointed tool and burns alcohol vapor, see C, can be bought for $3.00 and more.16 If you have gas in your house you can buy a tool which uses it for 50 cents or less.

Fig. 26c. An Outfit That Burns Benzine Vapor

About the Designs

If you are good at drawing you can make your own designs, but if not you can buy them ready to use. Draw your designs on soft white pine or basswood with a soft lead pencil having a blunt point. Photo frames, plaques, tie racks, collar boxes and things which you can saw out on your scroll saw are greatly improved by burning.

How to Burn in the Design

Heat the tool until it is red-hot, or if it is platinum until it is white hot as shown at D. Hold the tool as shown at E and

15 Can be bought of the L. E. Knott Apparatus Company, Boston, Mass.

16 Everything needed for pyrography can be had of the Frost and Adams Co., Cornhill, Boston.

without using too much pressure draw and push the point along the lines until they are burnt in evenly.

When you have burnt in the design burn in the background by making a lot of closely spaced lines; then burn in more parallel lines across the first set. This produces a cross-hatched effect which at a distance makes the design stand out in bold relief.

Fig. 26d. How The Tool Is Heated

Fig. 26e. Burning In The Design

When you have become a little expert you can shade the design but don't try it until you can burn the lines in evenly.