# Fractal Woodburning Tutorial



## WoodLove

As requested, I am posting this fractal wood burning tutorial for those of you who wanted to see how I do it. First I want to put out this disclaimer: This process uses high voltage electricity and the utmost care and safety needs to be observed at all times. That being said, let's begin.

1) In order to do fractal wood burning you need a high voltage transformer. These can be found in any microwave oven. I bought my transformer from Ebay for $20.00. You will also need an extension cord that can be sacrificed to provide the power to the transformer as well as some wire to connect to gator clips as seen in the pictures that follow. Below is an overall view of my setup.



2) Wiring up the transformer: The transformer has two male connector tabs that the 120v household current connects to. polarity does not matter when you hook up the hot (black wire) and the neutral (white wire). The electricity travels through the lower coil and out of the upper coil. This increases the power from 120v to approx. 2000v. As seen on my setup the red wires coming out of the middle were cut off and capped with wire nuts. The only power wire you need is the one that comes out of the upper coil. connect a wire (I used black) to the high voltage wire coming from the upper coil. Connect a second wire to the transformer housing (I used white). These two wires are your contact wires to perform the fractal wood burning process. Refer to pic for reference.








3) Connect gator clips to the ends of the two wires and at that point you are almost ready to go. I wanted as much control of the burning process as possible so I chose to drive two finishing nails through dowel rods and connect the gator clips to the nails. This provides a smaller contact burn verses a gator clip being pressed onto the wood.

Reactions: Like 1 | Way Cool 9


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## Kevin

Awesome. Thanks for the tut!


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## WoodLove

4) Creating the circuit in the wood. As is common knowledge, wood is not a good conductor of electricity and therefore something that is a good conductor must be used. A mixture of 1/3 cup of baking soda mixed with 2 quarts of water is my preferred mix. The water is the vehicle to complete the circuit and the baking soda helps control the extent of the burn. (baking soda helps the wood to burn, not ignite into flames)




5) I fractal burned a bowl this evening in order to do this tutorial. From start to finish the wood burning took approximately 5 minutes. As seen in the pictures the more water the wood absorbs the more electricity travels through the bowl.






In the above pic you can see the flare up that is caused when the two contact points fully connect in the circuit.

6) Once the fractal burn is complete you can use a nylon or bronze bristle brush (I use a dish brush and/or a toothbrush) and clean the item. Set the item aside and let it dry completely before finishing. NOTE: You can sand the item to 220 prior to fractal wood burning, and then sand again with the same girt after the wood is dry. This may take away the shallow surface burns and soot caused by the flare ups as well as allow the deeper burns to be accentuated. Finish the item as you normally would and enjoy your HIGH VOLTAGE ART.








IMPORTANT NOTE: As seen in the pictures, although the contact point may be on one side of the item the electricity my create additional burns elsewhere..... wherever the wood is wet there the electricity will be also.

Reactions: Thank You! 1 | Way Cool 7


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## barry richardson

Thanks Jamie! I have been googling the process since your initial post, seems pretty simple, and you just confirmed that. I think this will be a great way to transform a plain wood piece into something very unique, now I'm on a mission to find an old microwave.........

Reactions: Agree 3


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## Tony

Jamie, have you tried it on a piece you have turned green? I don't know a lot about turning, but if it being wet helps it burn I would think a green piece would look good. Tony


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## WoodLove

Tony said:


> Jamie, have you tried it on a piece you have turned green? I don't know a lot about turning, but if it being wet helps it burn I would think a green piece would look good. Tony


I have not tried it on a green piece but I can definitely give it a go and post the results. Thanks for the suggestion.

The only issue I see right off the bat is the wood will have to dry and because the fractal burning of the wood makes it thinner along the burn lines the wood could end up cracking as it dries because of the non-uniform thickness.


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## Johnturner

What a great tutorial!


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## Alan Sweet

Fractal Woodburning has a lot has a lot of potential.

See:

Reactions: Like 1


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## ripjack13

Oh man...I love it! Thanks for this!


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## Fsyxxx

Had swmbo post on the community online billboard her crazy husband is looking for broken microwaves for some mad scientist experiments.


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## manbuckwal

Very cool Jamie ! It certainly can transform a piece into something even more unique .


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## Kevin

I should probably not warn you guys and just let you get a big jolt lol, but when you're digging that HV xfmr out of the MWO be sure to take a screw driver or a grounded lead and discharge the HV cap. Think of the cap as a storage locker for voltage; when power is removed from the cap, depending on where in the sine wave the power was cut off the cap will have stored all of the potential, none of it, or anything in between. It will knock your weenie in the dirt when at full potential. 

I'm already thinking to wire two xmfrs in series. For a really big bang 2 in series, in parallel with 2 others in series. But I am always one to overdo it. I have no experience with neon signs, but I would imagine some of those xfmrs would put out more voltage and designed for less amps even, so they might be safer. I'm anxious to get an amprobe on the one I build just to see what kind of juice we're dealing with.

Jamie you've really created some excitement lol.

Reactions: Informative 2


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## WoodLove

Kevin said:


> I should probably not warn you guys and just let you get a big jolt lol, but when you're digging that HV xfmr out of the MWO be sure to take a screw driver or a grounded lead and discharge the HV cap. Think of the cap as a storage locker for voltage; when power is removed from the cap, depending on where in the sine wave the power was cut off the cap will have stored all of the potential, none of it, or anything in between. It will knock your weenie in the dirt when at full potential.
> 
> I'm already thinking to wire two xmfrs in series. For a really big bang 2 in series, in parallel with 2 others in series. But I am always one to overdo it. I have no experience with neon signs, but I would imagine some of those xfmrs would put out more voltage and designed for less amps even, so they might be safer. I'm anxious to get an amprobe on the one I build just to see what kind of juice we're dealing with.
> 
> Jamie you've really created some excitement lol.



If you are gonna run parallel transformers ya might as well hook your extension cord to the top wire on the power pole..... the 20,000 volts constant feed should work....lolol

Reactions: Funny 2


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## Kevin

The amperage will still be relatively low actually. Maybe enough to kill you though. It only takes a few ma across your heart to stop it. Since I posted this I have researched neon xfrm's and I am sure that's the way I want to go.


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## Blueglass

Kevin's first try the board is probably just going to spontaneously combust! Video please.

Reactions: Agree 1 | Funny 1


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## Kevin

If it does it wouldn't be 'spontaneous' now would it? It would have outside forces applied in the extreme.


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## David Van Asperen

This is an excellent thread on an interesting topic. Some of you know that I am techno challenged and as you may be able to guess that this slops over to electricity.
I am sure even following these apparently simple instructions that if it can be done wrong that is how it would end up for me, BUT I just may have to give this a shot, something about putting the charge to the wood and seeing that burn happen is alluring.
Dave

Reactions: Agree 1


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## WoodLove

I am gonna charge double for my custom made HIGH VOLTAGE ART.....lol

The neat thing about wood burning this way is you can adjust the mixture of the baking soda and water and change the effect on the wood. I prefer to keep the contact points relatively close so I gat a nice burn, but my next bowl is going to be totally cool....... I am going to walk the burn completely around the bowl...... stay tuned...... same bat time, same bat channel.......

Reactions: Like 3


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## Blueglass

Kevin said:


> If it does it wouldn't be 'spontaneous' now would it? It would have outside forces applied in the extreme.


Yeah but I picture it going up in one big poof!


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## manbuckwal

Wheres @Tclem he needs in on this ................ Tony, do not show Paxton how to do this !

Reactions: Agree 2


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## Tclem

manbuckwal said:


> Wheres @Tclem he needs in on this ................ Tony, do not show Paxton how to do this !


As much electrical wiring as he has helped me with so far he can probably do this by now. lol


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## Frankieb21

I've gotten into fractal burning recently and have produced some nice burn patterns. I'm using a baking soda/water solution as a conduit and have noticed a grayish discoloration on the wood from this. Has anyone else had this problem and what have you done to correct it. The mix is 1 cup(8 oz) of water and 2 tablespoons of baking soda. The wood is alligator juniper.

Thanks Frank


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## Lou Currier

There is another solution out there but I can’t remember it off the top of my head.


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