>I recently developed a desire to look into different texturing techniques after a demonstration at our local woodturning club by John Jordan. I'm particularly interested in a hammered apperance and wondered how this is done.
I would assume it's with some kind of tool with a spinning sprocket. Is it made by simply approaching the wood with the sprocket perpindicular to the ways or is there more to it?
Any links with different texturing techniques and lots of pictures for us visual thinkers would be great. Thanks.
There's a great wite-up in the current AAW Journal on using a welder's needle scaler to texture. I was looking into it as well, but am disappointed so far in that there's only 1 diameter of "needle" (3mm) in use. Also you'll find prices for the tool range from about $40 at Harbor Freight to $500 at McMaster-Carr so it's hard to gauge tool quality.
Of course, you can still get out your smallest ball peen and chasing hammers and have a go. |;-}
>John is the one that got me started. I use a dremel engraver mostly. I replace the pointed stylus with a rounded over shank of a 1/8" drill bit. Just use random patterns to dent the wood.
The needle scaler looks like fun and I will probably get one of those some day.
I've used a small ball peen hammer but you have to be carefull because it will crack the wood if you get carried away.
I like using the Dremel with small ball grinders. I use 3 sizes. This makes qreat pattern. I do a test using all my dremel bits to see what kind of pattern I can get. I just had fun using the football shaped cutter to make horizontal and vertical elongated lines. Just use your imagination.
One I learned from John was to put a wire wheel in the drill press and basically sort of cut patterns into the piece using the wheel. The longer you leave it in one place the deeper the grooves get. What's fun is to texture an area and then turn away some of it so you get a raised textured area. This also works well with more subtle texture using the wire wheels with the Dremel.
My favorite but it's really time consuming is to hand stamp a pattern using a small round leather stamp. it leaves a great pattern but you get tired of hammering a thousand hits.
All sorts of carving tools will leave interesting patterns. Practice making repeated short cuts to see what they will do.
There are many more ways to create patterns. Just find something and play on a scrap piece. You may come up with something really cool.
>I've been doing a series of pieces texturing with a burning pen. There's no end of patterns that you do. Here's a photo of one of them It's about 9 inches in dia.
I just posted about the last issue of Woodcarving Illustrated had 70 different woodburning textures you could use with only 3 tips. it was incredible. Actually the whole issue was on woodburning and there were some great tips.
I didn't even mention wood burning and using pens and inks and things like puff paint and T shirt paints. That opens up hundreds of possibilities.
>If I recall correctly, Michael Lee once said in a demo he used two methods, one is a small ball cutter in a high speed grinder. The other was basically a rotating steel shaft (such as a nail) with a bend in it. As the shaft rotates, the bent section pounds texture into the wood.
I've been using a cheapo air hammer from Lowes I think it was $19.00 or so? You can grind the tip down to whatever size of point you want. This is one result from that method. I really want to get a scaler like Jordan uses. I think that look he gets is just fantastic.
>I picked up a couple needle scaler ends at harbor freight for about 10 bucks a piece. I already had an air hammer to screw them on to.I also took them apart (a retaining ring, and it's spring loaded)to sharpen the rods that are in it to different degrees.They will texture hard wood better that way.Good luck.
>There's a lot of great advice here. I have recently been exploring texturing as well. One that works well for me on side grain is a rotating grinding wheel dresser, it looks like a cowboy boot spur.
Another from further down in the posts is the wire wheel. I chuck it up in a cordless drill and hit the wood with the lathe spinning. It strips away the softer wood from between the harder growth rings.
I have not heard of the needle scaler, but it sounds cool. I picked one up in a box of air tools at a garage sale and its been sitting in a drawer ever since. Can someone tell me how it is presented to the wood?
>The cheapest rig is the Harbor freight air hammer with the needle scaler head screwed on. Under $25 if you can catch a sale. I bought the Sioux light weight at about $100. Take it apart and grind the needles rounded on the ends. Polish the ends for smother dimples. Aproach your wood at right angles and give it a zap. Checkout Bob Rosand's article in last months AAW magazine, or better yet attend his demo.
I haven't tried the scaler yet but every power tool texturing I've done can be done either way. It just has a diffent look. Usually when it's done with the lathe on it gives a more repeated pattern rather than random
