CRAYON DÉCOR

I had to try something different in the workshop. (I do a lot of that) I decided to try melting crayons for some letter art.

I cut five slices off of an ash log, that came from my neighbor’s tree.

Then routered in the letters. This is always best to do outdoors, because of the dust and the noise. Even outdoors I wear ear plugs and a dust mask. I even had to get out the goggles too because the sawdust kept blowing up into my eyes.

I tried different methods of melting the different colors. I wasn’t pleased with the look when different colors ran together, so I ended up making a dam to separate the colors.

After one color set was melted, I let it cool before melting a second color. Immediately after melting the second color, I removed the dam. The hot crayon flowed into the void where the dam was.

I tried using a heat gun, but found the blower would occasionally splash out the melted crayon. This created a lot of sanding later. Unfortunately the torch would scorch the wood some. I’ll have to experiment with some different methods to find a more ideal solution. I’ll update this blog when I get it figured out.

I contemplated filling the letter in with epoxy for a more finished look, but for this project I didn’t think it would add much to the look. So I just finished the wood off with a couple coats of shellac and called it good.