Burning rings on tool handles?

[Keith Heyer]

I know they sell the tool to make the burn the rings on tool handles, but if you were to make your own what kind of wire do you use?

Thanks,

Keith

[Brad Reid]

I have used strips of leather before that comes from a craft store or walmart on a spool.

[Robert Vroman]

I have had good luck with guitar strings.

[Keith Heyer]

I have had good luck with guitar strings.

Any particular size or brand? Should the strings be for an electric guitar or acoustic? Does it matter?


Keith

[Rodney Walker]

I use a piece of stainless wire off a spool my brother gave me. I don't think you need to be real selective. Almost anything will work.
On a safety note: Hold the wire so it's not wrapped around your hand or likely to get tangled in the spinning parts of the lathe. If you're not paying attention you can go from fun to bloody mess pretty quickly.
Rodney

[Richard Jones]

I like wound guitar strings, acoustic or electric, even flat wound jazz strings. The wound G, approx. .022", is about the right size for me. The wound strings seem to last forever, at least for me. I have heard others that use stainless steel fishing leader with good results. Whatever you have on hand.

As Rodney said, don't wrap the string around your fingers. Drill a hole crosswise in a piece of closet rod or similar, tie the string off after threading through the hole. I generally use the tool rest as the fulcrum for one handle while burning, then simply pivot the wire into the wood.

Adequate speed is also required to generate the heat necessary for a good burn. This is a pic of a KC tool, just for technique. Bottom part of wire is in contact with the tool rest, top hand is the burn regulator............

FYI, an .009 high E string will really zip through a piece of wood. While the effect is mesmerizing, the result usually isn't.............

245752

[Dan Hintz]

Anything handy will work... as others have said, just be sure to make a handle for it, don't try to wrap it around your fingers for simplicity / speed.

[Greg Just]

I use stranded picture hanging wire with a small dowel at each end for a handle.

[Bob Bergstrom]

Piece of Floormica works great. Big box stores have those nice little squares free. Even have a hole to hang them up on a nail.

[Bernie Weishapl]

I bought a roll of stainless steel fishing leader wire. Lifetime supply.

[Dale Miner]

mig welding wire

[Robert Vroman]

Ditto what Richard said. I use either dowel rods, or scrap wood a little bigger than pen blanks for handles.

[Jimmy Edwards]

scrap electrical wire, any gauge you like

[James Combs]

First time a short piece of electric fence wire I had laying around, next time a piece of piano wire left over from a guy that restrung our church piano. No idea of the "note" but it worked great with a couple pieces of wooden dowel as handles. Now hangs next to the lathe.

[Norm Zax]

Any wire, say 16th of an inch or less. Best is to score lightly with a skew (while turning) so wire sits in the groove and doesnt skid. Longer stretch of wire touching the wood is faster to heat. Use close to max speed. Let wire cool 20 seconds before putting down on table or touching it - it can be red hot. Make a set of two or three different wires to get variuos thicknesses of lines.
Enjoy!
(experiment with coloring between lines - paint will stop at burn line, which is kind of neat)

[mark ravensdale]

What you need is nichrome wire, it's the same stuff they make pyrography tips from (the bent wire tips) you can buy it on reels of varying thickness, I live in the UK so can't tell you where to get it where you live, I have 3 reels of it in differing sizes and it works out much cheaper than buying those burners from the woodturning shops, there's enough on a reel to last for years.
hope this helps!!!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

If you go into a music store that sell a lot of guitars, often you can buy individual guitar strings cheaply. I use the single strand guitar strings for burning the grooves and to replace broken strings on cheese slicers too.

[Dan Hintz]

What you need is nichrome wire
That's a really expensive way to go, especially when almost anything else will do the same job. Why spend extra dough on nichrome when you're not passing current through it?

[Dan Hintz]

If you go into a music store that sell a lot of guitars, often you can buy individual guitar strings cheaply. I use the single strand guitar strings for burning the grooves and to replace broken strings on cheese slicers too.

Even better, ask them if you can have their restrung throwaways... I bet they have a handful and they're free...

[Timothy Mann]

I use stainless steel fishing leader as well....

[John C Lawson]

I use a length picture-hanging wire because it's what I found first. Made a couple handles. I also cut a groove first so the wire doesn't wander. I just lay my parting tool on its side and use the point.

[Reed Gray]

Hay bale or rebar (for concrete), and feed sack tie wire works great, so does copper wire, formica is great, and if you know any guitar players, they will be willing to give you old worn out strings. No need to buy some thing fancy.

robo hippy

[Keith Heyer]

Thank you everyone for the suggestions. I was able to complete the task using a length of picture hanging wire. I made two small handles for the wire out of 1" wood dowel.

I also picked up some floral wire at Michaels. They had a couple of different sizes so I figured I would try that and see how it works.


Thanks again for all the suggestions!

Keith

[Bob Hamilton]

I use a piece of 16 gauge galvanized wire from the hardware store. I can't say it ever occurred to me that it needed to be special wire.

Bob

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Here's a thought. The KC Wire Burners is not that expensive. I've used/made the homemade ones, and as everyone else said, virtually anything will work. BUT since I had to shell out hard earned dollars to buy the overpriced packaged products, I tend to keep track of them and have not lost any yet. I can't remember how many times I went looking for the home made burners. I just got tired of wasting time looking for them and making another burner when I wanted to burn rings. Plus, they have different colored balls on the ends to signify the different thickness.

Not affiliated with KC Burners, nor do I intend you to buy any. Just a thought. Works for me.....

[Glen Blanchard]

This thread reminds me of the story (supposedly, true) of the guy who went to his garage to get a length of fishing line. As the story is told, he was looking around the garage for a pair of scissors or a knife, when his table saw caught his eye. He wrapped the line around the palm of each hand multiple times to secure his grasp. Yep, you can guess the rest. He started up the table saw and passed the fishing line into the spinning blade. The problem is that the line missed the carbide tips and wound up in one of the gullets of the blade, which then pulled both of his hands into the spinning blade. OUCH!!!

So, yeah, make some cheap handles for the wire and don't wrap it around your hands!