Tips for Carbon-free Wire Tips
You’ll achieve crisper and more consistent woodburned marks with carbon-free wire tips. That’s reason enough to remove any carbon buildup on your wire tips on a regular basis.
What is carbon buildup?
Carbon buildup is carbon debris that accumulates on your wire tip as you woodburn. Carbon is essentially a byproduct of burning wood. Your wire tip will be less efficient if it’s bespeckled with carbon, because carbon buildup hinders the transfer of heat from your wire tip to the wood surface.
If you don’t remove it, carbon will continue to accumulate on your wire tip. Higher heat settings and longer woodburning sessions will produce more carbon. These two factors will influence the frequency at which you should clean your wire tips.
How to recognize carbon buildup
As you woodburn, you may notice that your marks are getting lighter although your heat setting hasn’t changed. You may even feel that your wire tip is dragging and not gliding as smoothly across your wood canvas. Your wire tip may have visible black, carbon specks on it. These are signs that your wire tip is accumulating carbon that needs to be removed. If you let the carbon accumulate on your wire nib, it will take more effort to remove.
Removing carbon buildup while woodburning
Check for the signs mentioned above and remove any carbon buildup as you woodburn. You can use a soft, brass bristle brush or a piece of scrap denim to remove some of the carbon that is accumulating on your wire tip.
Before gently scraping your wire tip on the brass bristles or wiping it on a piece of denim, ensure that the heat setting of your wire tip doesn’t exceed mid-range to avoid charring the bristles or denim.
Your denim should be placed on a scrap piece of wood or on a heat-resistant surface such as a pyro studio mat. I purchased my pyro studio mat and brass bristle brush from Razertip’s online pyro studio.
As you woodburn, you’ll need to remove the carbon debris using either the brass brush or piece of denim. Although you’ll be able to remove some of the carbon, you still need to give your wire tips a thorough cleaning between woodburning sessions.
Removing carbon buildup while your wire tip is cool and not in use
Even if you remove some of the carbon buildup as you’re woodburning, you’ll need to clean your wire tips more thoroughly on a regular basis to remove any remaining carbon residue. The most common method used by woodburning artists to clean and polish wire tips requires a leather strop and fine (white) aluminum oxide.
Aluminum oxide is a fine polishing abrasive (white powder) that doesn’t scratch metal surfaces. It’s also used as a final polishing step to polish rocks. I use the Polly Plastics 1200 grit fine aluminum oxide polish to remove carbon residue from my wire tips.
A leather strop usually has two sides to it — a smooth (skin) and rough (suede) side. The smooth side can be used for a more refined polish after you’ve cleaned your wire tip on the rough side. I purchased my double-sided hand strop (with two leather pads) from my local Lee Valley store.
How to remove carbon residue with a leather strop and aluminum oxide polishing powder
You can use a reusable, plastic stirring stick to scoop out a small amount (no more than 1/8 of a teaspoon) of aluminum oxide from the jar and spread it on a small area of the rough (suede) side of the leather strop. You then gently rub your cool wire tip back and forth and sideways on the aluminum oxide until all the carbon residue has been removed. Depending on the shape of your wire tip, you’ll need to rub its curved and flat surfaces.
Although using the aluminum oxide on the rough (suede) side will remove all the carbon buildup, you may want to use the soft (skin) side to give your wire tip a final polish. You simply put a very small amount of aluminum oxide on the soft side of the leather strop and gently rub your wire tip until it becomes shiny.
When using aluminum oxide, avoid inhaling it and protect your skin from direct contact by wearing nitrile gloves. You can wipe off any residue aluminum oxide from you newly polished wire tip with a soft, lint-free cloth.
Aluminum Oxide Powder versus White Jeweler’s Rouge Polishing Compound
Instead of using aluminum oxide powder on the leather strop, you can use a white jeweler’s rouge polishing compound. It’s more difficult, however, to load the leather strop with the polishing compound given its solid texture. Jeweler’s rouge is a polishing compound that was primarily used to polish jewelry. Although the rouge comes in different colours, the white rouge is the compound that is mostly used by woodburning artists. You can try the aluminum oxide powder and white rouge compound to find out which one you prefer to use.
Equipment for removing carbon residue
You’ll need the following equipment to remove carbon residue while you’re woodburning and between woodburning sessions:
Leather strop with soft (skin) and rough (suede) sides
Aluminum oxide polishing powder (or white jeweler’s rouge polishing compound)
Soft, brass bristle brush
Piece of denim scrap
Lint-free cloth
Plastic stirring stick
Nitrile gloves
What not to use for removing carbon residue
When removing carbon residue from your wire tips, avoid scraping them against abrasive material such as sandpaper, emery boards, razor blades and tea strainers. Abrasive material may scratch, weaken or damage your wire tips.
Enjoy woodburning with your carbon-free wire tips!
