branding iron

[jeff oldham]

can anyone tell me of a place to get a good budget friendly electric branding iron,,,,,i just want to brand a few things i make,,,i noticed amazon sells them and so does rockler,,,and i do know some places are very high,,and in all honestly can anyone give me their thoughts on getting the electric type or getting the kind where you heat it up with a torch,,,thank you

[Lee Schierer]

I'm not sure what your budget is, but Rockler and Amazon have electric branding irons for wood of various types and cost ranges. I was given a torch heated branding iron that works pretty well for as often as I need it.

[Dwayne Watt]

There are sellers on Etsy for branding irons that are a reasonable price. A torch heated iron should never fail. Unless you are doing a lot of branding work, torch heat should suffice. If I was doing work approaching sales quantities, I would invest in a small laser unit to make badges or directly brand items.

[Rick Potter]

Just a personal problem probably, but I have a torch branding iron, and each time I use it I either under or over heat it.

It is common for me to have to practice a couple times to achieve a consistent temp before actually branding the workpiece.

I have often wondered if the electric ones are better at attaining a consistent heat??

I also like the idea of the ones you put in a drill press, as you would eliminate branding at an angle. Of course, it would not work on large pieces. Maybe they come with a handle as well??

[Robert Hayward]

I have and use a small torch heated branding iron. Branding irons are difficult to achieve consistent good results. As mentioned above it is almost impossible to determine the correct amount of heat to use. Even two pieces of the same species of wood being branded at the same time will produce different results. Too hot and you smudge/burn the wood. Too cold and you do not get a good mark. Almost impossible to rebrand a too cold first brand. Just cannot line the iron up exactly the same as the first time. The hot iron must also be pressed into the wood exactly square to the wood or your brand is darker/heavier on one side.

Do not let me completely discourage you for it is possible to get a good brand. Mess up the brand though and what do you do with the piece? Cook chicken with it on the grille Sunday afternoon, or let it slide?

In the attached picture the only brand I consider good is the one on the upper right. The iron was not square to the wood on the other two.

You should look into a small laser before making a final decision.

Here is a good source for custom irons.

[Roger Feeley]

I have an electric iron that I mounted in a drill press to brand about 200 boards. I found that branding irons are very fussy about the board being exactly flat and aligned correctly. I solved the alignment problem by making my fixture for holding the work wobble. I screwed a board to the drill press table. Using a core box bit, I drilled a pit about 3/16” deep. I put a half inch marble in the pit and inverted another board with a similar pit onto the marble leaving about 1/8” gap. I added various blocks and stops to keep that top board aligned and to hold the pieces to be branded. I just had to make sure that the marble was right under the drill chuck.

[Paul Haus]

I also have an electric branding iron I've had for over 30 years. You do have a period of time you have to wait while it warms up enough to generate a brand. One other thing I've noticed is though the head still looks flat according to a straight edge, it still requires rocking the iron a little to get the full brand on the piece being branded.
Sorry but it's been so long since I bought it I don't remember where I ordered it through.

[ChrisA Edwards]

I struggled with both heat by torch and electric branding irons. Even after testing on scrap pieces of the same material using an infrared temp device to make sure the iron was at a fairly consistent temp, my results were still marginal.

Also, if you brand an area, that is end grain or the brand spans multiple species of wood, the results can be disappointing.

I finally gave up and bought a cheap laser. You can increase/decrease the power of the laser and you get the brand where you want it and no residual burning in the surrounding area.

It's a bit more of an upfront investment, but the results, for me at least, are night and day.

Plus if I want to change the brand, I just do that in the software and I'm good to go.

Plus you can do things like this

[Mike Burke]

I have been thinking about getting an branding iron but, it sounds like their pretty finicky. I have been thinking about getting a self inking stamp , or a ink stamp of some kind. We have a couple self inkers at work and I stamped some wood samples and they worked pretty good.

[Tom Blank]

I use a torch branding iron. It did take some time to figure out the proper heat. Early on I had the iron way too hot. Works better with a not so hot iron and leaving it on the surface a bit longer. I do have to rock the iron slightly to get an even pattern all the way across.

Mine is from Terry Desiletsat Custom Branding Irons, Inc. A nice fellow to work with. I called him, described my needs, and he pointed out pros and cons of both the electric and torch heated irons. He can do both.

[Ken Krawford]

I'll second the frustration with electric branding irons. I'll do a couple of trial runs on scrap that will look fine and then mess up the final product. If part of the image doesn't "print" there's no second chance either. I KNOW!

[Frank Necaise]

I got my branding iron from Buckeye Engraving. They make both torch and electric irons. https://buckeyeengraving.com/custom-branding-irons/

[Bob McBreen]

I had an electric branding iron. Because of the different font sizes it was had to get it to burn evenly. I had about a 30% failure rate.

I bought a cheap 3 watt diode laser. It is fantastic & I can easily customize.

[Mike Wilkins]

I opted for an electric model since it was a simple plug and play.
Only problem with my Highland Hardware model is the plate is not perfectly flat so I have to rock it a little back and forth to get a full print.

[Scott Clausen]

My Daughter bought me a non electric one for Christmas. I got it too hot but after cooling a little it did better. I keep some test scrap to test before I commit to the project.