Tealight Candle Holder Featuring Lichtenberg Figures

     After my initial foray into Lichtenberg Figures, the machine ended up being put on a shelf to gather dust as predicted.  While it was inexplicably enjoyable to electrocute wood, the end results were underwhelming to me.  What do I do with a bunch of wood panels with Lichtenberg Figures on them?  By themselves they didn't merit hanging on a wall or giving as gifts.  In fact, the only piece that I was overly pleased with was my hiking stick with the figures burned at the top.  I decided that the best use for the Lichtenberg machine would be to add a decorative touch to pieces that were functional or decorative in their own right.

     As summer approaches and yard work threatens to monopolize my time, large projects in the shop have to take a back seat.  Faced with a little free time over last weekend I decided I could squeeze in a small weekend project, and maybe even find a way to incorporate Lichtenberg figures.  After taking stock of the materials I had on hand, I decided to make a tealight candle holder, since I had some tealights leftover from lathe projects I had done in the past.  As always, the first question to answer is what wood to use, so my first step was to do a little experimenting.

     The first pieces I cut were two pieces of poplar and a piece of mahogany.  These were chosen because they were small cut-off pieces from other projects that were already about the right thickness, and they were close to the top of my wood pile.  I also pulled out some small pieces of maple and walnut, but they would need to be planed, so I saved those for batch two.  I cut the wood to size and drilled the holes for the tealight candles.  I found in previous experiments that in order for the figures to work well in harder woods they needed two or three coats of electrolyte solution, and time to absorb between coats, so I went ahead and prepped the wood for burning.  Below are my experiments and observations burning the first three pieces.  I really do learn something new every time I get this machine out.

     The top piece in the picture above was the first piece.  The problem seemed to be that too much of the electrolyte solution dripped over and soaked into the edges of the piece, causing most of the burning to take place on the edge, not the surface.  The bottom piece above was the second burn.  For this one I made sure not to paint the electrolyte all the way to the edge, leaving a thin, dry boarder around the edge of the surface.  Unfortunately the poplar proved too eager to catch fire and burn, leaving thick smudgy lines, which was not the desired effect.  So far, two pieces burned, two lessons learned.  Just when I was getting a little discouraged, the third piece (in the middle above) brought me a pleasant surprise.  While I was hoping for a little more detail, the mahogany burned like no other wood I had tried previously.  On other woods the pattern started at both electrodes and snaked through the wood until the two ends got close enough to arc.  On the mahogany, the burn seemed to start instantaneously all throughout the wood and quickly begin to arc.

     Based on that experiment, I decided that Mahogany might be the wood to use for this project.  On the bright side, I happen to have some lying around, but on the other side, it is very expensive, and I hate to use it on a dinky little project like this.  In the long run I decided to go ahead and use a little of the Mahogany I had on hand.  What's the point in having it if I never use it for anything, waiting for that perfect project that never comes.  I ripped a length of it, planed it down to a little over a quarter inch, and cut that length into four pieces ready to be burned.  Below is the result.

     I was very pleased with the way these turned out.  You'll notice in the picture that each of these pieces has a lighter area around the boarder.  This is a result of not painting the electrolyte solution all the way to the edge.  I learned early on in the experimenting process that the electrolyte solution always discolors the wood after the electricity has been applied.  It doesn't have the same effect without the electricity, so I can't just go back and apply more around the edges after the burning.  In this case I kinda like the effect, so I don't mind it so much, but it's something to keep in mind.  The other thing to take away from this is that the patterns got better as I went along.  In the picture above, the top piece was done first, and they continue down in chronological order.  I did the first coat of electrolyte on all of them at the same time, and then went back and did the second coat immediately before burning.  This means that the pieces towards the bottom had longer for the first coat to soak in than the top pieces.  This seems to have resulted in a better burn pattern, but also a deeper discoloration from the electrolyte solution.  So it seems to be a trade-off, but the main takeaway is that on harder woods, it is better to give it a little more time to let the first coat of electrolyte solution soak in thoroughly before applying the second coat and burning. 

       OK, so now the burning is done.  Time to put the machine back on the shelf and finish up the project.  I needed some sort of legs or base to hold the mahogany up high enough for the tealights fit down through the holes.  I had a couple of ebony turning blanks that I had purchased because they were on sale, and I think the black color of ebony will go great with the mahogany.  After squaring, cutting, and drilling the ebony, the only thing left is to add a little polyurethane and do the final assembly.

     Typically I would spray-finish this type of project with lacquer or something similar, but I was out of lacquer and I had some polyurethane-type finish lying around.  Since I had never experimented with spraying this particular finish I decided to brush it on... big mistake.  Between the dry-time, the sanding, and the 3-4 re-coats the finishing took forever.  A weekend to build, a week to finish.  It's time to go get some more lacquer.

And here we have the finished product.  I think they turned out well, and they gave me a chance to play with my Lichtenberg machine again, so all-in-all I'm very pleased with this project.

End Grain Cutting Board

     End grain cutting boards make great gifts, and are not incredibly difficult to make if you take the time to make sure all measurements and cuts are precise.  The basic concept is to have the wood grains line up vertically so that the knife's edge actually goes down between the grains  instead of cutting across them.  This improves the life of the cutting board, and keeps your kitchen knives sharper for longer.

      The first consideration when planning out a cutting board is to pick the woods that will be used.  While it's good to think about the contrast and color coordination of the wood, there are other important factors.  Most importantly, some woods can cause allergic reactions, and even be directly toxic, which makes them a poor choice for use in a cutting board.  The second consideration is the hardness of the wood.  It is important to use a dense hardwood to extend the longevity of the board, and it is also good to make sure that the woods don't vary too much in hardness to keep the joints from stressing as the wood moves over time.  I always like to use Hard Maple in my cutting boards as it is very easy to work with, and it also has innate anti-bacterial properties.  I chose Purple Heart as the contrast wood, mainly because I like the color, and I have used it before along with Maple to make end grain boards.

       One more quick note about my wood choices, it's always good to know the characteristics of the wood that one is working with.  While Purple Heart is a pretty wood, it does like to chip and tear-out, which can be annoying, but it's not a show stopper.  Be sure to make shallow passes on both the planer and jointer to minimize tear-out, and maybe start with the wood a little thicker than needed in case it takes a couple of extra passes through the planer to get rid of tear-out.  The Hard Maple won't have as many issues with tear-out as the Purple Heart, but it does tend to get burn marks when sawing, especially when cutting two inch thick pieces like we will be doing here.  My trick to dealing with the burn marks is to cut pieces 1/16 to 1/8 inch wider than needed, and then make a second cut on each side of the piece, only taking 1/16 to 1/32 off on the second cut.  This will get rid of the burn marks, and typically will not make new burns when cutting such a small amount.

      OK, time to stop rambling and get to building...

     I was able to get some nice 8/4 Hard Maple stock for this project, but I was unable to find any 8/4 Purple Heart, so a couple of Purple Heart 2"x2" turning blanks will have to suffice.  There was no need to start planing down the whole slab of Maple, so I cut what I needed on the radial arm saw.  There is always waste on a project like this, so it is important to cut a little longer than I think I will need.

     Once the boards are cut, it's time to run them through the planer.  Everything needs to be absolutely flat on both sides and uniform thickness.

     Once the boards are flat, use the jointer to get one edge perfectly flat and perpendicular to the planed surface.  No need to worry about the other edge, we'll get that on the table saw.

     I know I mentioned it previously, but precision is key to making one of these cutting boards turn out well.  It is important to make sure that everything is perfectly square on both the table saw and the jointer or it will stick out like a sore thumb on the finished product.

Now that the board is flat and square it is time to rip some 2x2 strips on the table saw.  Pretty self explanatory.

Next cross-cut the strips to length.  I'm not worried about the length being perfectly precise, or else I would use a sled with a stop, or set a stop against fence, but if the length is not perfect it can be cleaned up after the first gluing with the table saw.

I like to line everything up before getting ready to glue, just to make sure there are no gaps, and everything lines up correctly.

Time for the first gluing.  I'm not the best at this step.  The strips always seem to want to slide and move on me while I am trying to clamp them.  Consider this step practice for the second gluing.  If things aren't perfect after this step they can be cleaned up on the planer and the table saw.  If things aren't perfect after the second gluing then either the project will go into the scrap heap, or be prepared to spend days sanding.  Let the glue dry for 24 hours.

I didn't take any pictures of the clean-up work after the first gluing, but if you've seen one board go through the planer, you've seen them all.  First I cleaned up the glue that squeezed out from in between the strips with a razor blade. Then I ran the glue-ups through the planer again to get all the rest of the glue, and make sure that they were perfectly flat.  This step is very important because sometimes, if the first glue-up is clamped too tight, it will cause the whole piece to bow upward in the middle, which can cause major problems with the second glue-up.  Once the glued-up boards are flat, use the table saw to get one flat edge, perpendicular to the lengthwise strips.

Time to cut the second set of strips.  Technically we are cross-cutting here, but I'm using the ripping fence to get uniform strips, so I'm not sure what you would call this exactly.  Cross-ripping?

You can see the burn marks on the maple I was talking about earlier.  This is where you want to cut these strips a little wider than you need, and then go back and cut off 1/32 to 1/16 of an inch to get rid of the burn marks.  Trust me, nobody wants to be sanding burn marks out of the end-grain after the glue-up, it would take forever.

As I pointed out before, always line up your pieces the way you want them before gluing, and this is an example of why.  If you look closely in the picture above, you can see that the edges of the new strips aren't perfectly parallel, so they leave thin little gaps between the strips at the top and bottom.  This is because I didn't get the boards perfectly flat on the planer after the first glue up.  Luckily, I can use the table saw to fix this at this point.  If I had gone straight to gluing, it would be too late, and the whole thing would end up in the scrap heap.  There is not much that can be done if you end up with gaps between the boards after gluing.  Gaps will leave places for bacteria to grow, hence making the cutting board possibly hazardous to your health, not to mention unsightly.  So let's get this fixed up and move on.

This is much better.  No gaps.  Let's take it over to the gluing bench.

This gluing needs to be as perfect as humanly possible.  Sanding end-grain is an extremely slow and tedious process.  It is already going to take a lot of sanding just to remove the excess glue that won't come off with a razor blade, but if your boards are off by even a little bit be prepared to sand for days.

No pictures of the sanding process either, so you'll have to use your imagination.  Imagine a 48" belt sander with an 80-grit belt.  You would think it would chew through wood faster than you could feed it, but not on end-grain.  Make slow even passes until all the glue marks are gone.  Don't assume that you will get those last few marks during clean-up sanding because you will just end up going back to the belt sander after wasting hours with the hand sander.  Once I am satisfied with both faces of the board, I change the belt to 120 grit to get the sides of the board.  I also round the corners of the board on the belt sander, just for aesthetics.

 After the belt sander, and before I do the final sanding, I like to use a hand router to round over or chamfer the edges on both faces of the board.  This is not only aesthetic, but also helps to get ones fingers under the board when picking it up off of a flat surface.  To clean up the scratches from the belt sander I use a random orbit sander starting with 60 grit, followed by 80, then 120, then 220.  When the sanding is done, take a break, you deserve it.

This particular cutting board is going to be a gift, so I thought I'd personalize it with a little bit of wood burning.  This should be done on the side of the board so as not to mar the cutting surface, and it is much easier to do before oiling the board.

I like to take several days to oil the boards to make sure the wood is fully saturated.  Always use food grade mineral oil, and if it is a gift, it doesn't hurt to give a small bottle of mineral oil with the board so the recipient can add some oil from time to time.  Since I had the oil out, I grabbed a cutting board from the kitchen that I made for my wife years ago so I could freshen up the oil on that one too.  Apply the mineral oil liberally and allow to soak for 30 mins to an hour minimum.  Flip the board over and repeat, and repeat, and repeat.  After doing this for a few days I am satisfied that the board is saturated.  I do the last two coats with a product called "Butcher Block Conditioner", which is made from bees wax and mineral oil.  It is very thick when it first comes out of the bottle, and you have to heat it up to melt the wax.  The wax helps to seal the cutting board so that it doesn't dry out as quickly.  Speaking of drying, I will let this board air out for a few days before gift wrapping it, otherwise the recipient might unwrap an oily mess.

And that's all there is to it.  Mark and Kara, if you are reading this, I hope you don't mind me making a blog post out of your wedding present.  We had a great time in Lewisburg, and I wish you both all the happiness in the world.

Lumber Racks

Storage is key for any shop, but for me, building lumber racks is long overdue, as you can see below.

Step 1:  Move all the lumber and other misc. materials.  Then clean up the area and prepare for painting.  I was hoping to be able to leave the existing stucco in place, but after I moved everything out of the way I determined that the stucco had pulled away from the wall in many places.  Leaving that would just be giving bugs, moisture, and mold a safe place to live, so I began chipping away at the loose stucco.  The picture below is just the beginning of the process.

After two days of removing stucco followed by two days of scrubbing with bleach and detergent, I was finally ready to start priming and painting.  It's amazing the difference a fresh coat of paint can make.

The next step is going to be to install the top and bottom plate for the frame.  Like the other wall project I did, I wanted to shim the bottom plate up off of the floor so that if water does come into the basement it will be able to flow under the frame and not soak into the wood.  I depleted my store of metal shims on the other part of the wall, so I had to come up with something else.  I decided that plastic would actually work better than metal since there was no chance of oxidizing, so I bought a plastic "board" 3-1/2" wide by 8' long and cut it into pieces to act as shims.

I threw together a quick jig on the drill press to drill the shims, and that was all there was to it.

Building the frame was actually the easiest part of the project.  The only tedious part was using the plumb-bob to mark the floor for the shims and the bottom plate, the rest went pretty quickly.

Making and mounting the arms on the other hand was more tedious than I realized it would be.  Two days of making the arms, mounting, and leveling.

In the end it was well worth the time and effort.  And I was even able to shrink my lumber pile further as most of the pine boards and 2x4s used for the arms were left over from other projects or reclaimed scrap from old shelving.

I still need to wire up a light switch and add an overhead electrical outlet, but for the most part I am done.  I might need to do some reorganizing of the lumber, but for now I was just happy to get most of it up off the floor and back where it belongs.

One last thing to point out in the picture below, the second row of arms from the bottom were designed to be at the same height as the top of the radial arm saw, and the first two arms on the right side of that row are 8 inches longer than the other arms on that level.  This way if I ever need to cut a piece of board between 9 and 14 ft long on the radial arm saw it can rest on the ends of those two arms.  That's not a common occurrence, but when it happens I'll be glad I planned ahead for it.

And of course, since I built the lumber racks, I had to build Courtney some shelves of her own, so we now have new laundry room shelves as well.

Hiking Stick

With Brass Ferrule, Tapered Grip, Wrist Strap, and Lichtenberg Figures

     Yes, this is just a hiking stick.  I know that this isn't really much of a project, but it has a few neat features that I wanted to record for future reference.  So, without further ado, here's the stick:

     Please disregard my messy network cabinet, it has since been straightened up.  The stick is made from Diamond Willow, which is a very pale color, almost white.  I didn't really like the look of a white hiking stick, so I stained it with some black cherry stain that I had leftover from refurbishing my hardwood floors.  Unfortunately, on the white wood, black cherry turns out bright purple.  The purple hiking stick was worse than a white hiking stick, so I sanded it off and went with a regular cherry stain.  I then finished it with Teak Oil, which I think will hold up better to regular outdoor use than polyurethane or lacquer.  Now, onto the "features":

     The Lichtenberg Figures are just decoration, nothing special, although they did turn out better than I expected (except for the part near the handle that looks "smudged" from where the stick caught on fire.)  The handle itself is wrapped in paracord to add a little cushion to the grip.  I carved a shoulder into the stick at the top and bottom of the grip that then tapered out toward the middle of the grip, so where the paracord meets the wood it is flush, but then the grip tapers out to be slightly thicker than the stick.  

     The best part of this project is the adjustable wrist strap.  I used to own a set of lightweight "trekking poles" that had wrist straps, and I never knew how important they were until I used them.  After a long day of hiking with a stick or a pole, your hands will get very tired from gripping the stick tightly all day.  The wrist strap allows you to put the majority of the weight on your wrist, greatly reducing hand fatigue.  I picked up a pair of "sleeping bag straps" at a local sporting goods store for less than $2 and they worked perfectly.  I drilled a 3/8" hole in the stick, fed the strap through, and then secured the strap to the stick with exterior wood screws.  Going through the hole in the stick should reduce the strain on the strap enough that I don't expect it to pull out of the screws. 

     Last, but certainly not least, is the brass ferrule I added to the tip of the stick to prevent the stick from splitting at the bottom:

     Our local hardware store sells these as brass sleeve bearings, but I like to use them as ferrules when making lathe tools because the brass is soft enough to turn on the wood lathe to add a little extra detail.  They are also very dull when first purchased so I usually shine them up by sanding them down to 1200 grit paper (the one pictured above on the stick is a little scratched from use).  When turning brass on a wood lathe it is important to set your lathe to the lowest possible speed.  I use a homemade skew chisel to SCRAPE (not cut) the decorative rings into the brass.  To secure the ferrule on the lathe I chucked up a piece of ash, and then turned a taper.  Using my largest live center on the tailstock I can push the ferrule into the ash taper and it holds really well.

     Once the ferrule was shined up and ready, I hand carved a shoulder onto the end of the stick, making the outer diameter of the end of the stick just slightly larger than the inner diameter of the ferrule.  I ended up having to use sand paper to get it just right.  I then hammered the ferrule onto the stick, using a second brass bearing to push it down flush against the shoulder.  And that's all there is to it.  Hopefully I never need to remove the ferrule from the stick because I don't believe I could get it loose without cutting it off the stick.

      And on a completely different subject, in case the messy network cabinet in the first picture on this post bothers anyone else as much as it bothers me, below is proof that I've cleaned it up.

More Lichtenberg Figures

I've been experimenting with different techniques for these Lichtenberg Figures using larger pieces of MDF.  Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments if anyone has any good ideas.

     In the figure above I coated the whole piece with electrolyte (excluding the edges), and then tried moving the electrodes around to different nails.  It turned out better than the previous ones using two fixed points for the electrodes, but the current kept wanting to jump back to previous carbon paths, so the second and third burns had less detail than the first.

     In the figure above I selectively coated the piece to keep the current from jumping as easily to existing paths.  The first coat was a backwards L pattern from the bottom left to the upper right corners.  The second went from the top left corner diagonally down to the right, but didn't connect to any of the existing carbon paths.  The third coat went from the top left horizontally to the right using the same nail on the right as the first burn.  This one shows more detail than the last, and shows me that I can influence the design instead of making it completely random.

     The figure above is larger than the previous two.  In this one I did two parallel coats of electrolyte and burned the vertical patterns on the left and the right.  I then painted a wide, slightly diagonal coat of electrolyte across the middle, connecting the carbon paths on the left and the right and did the burn using the bottom left and top right nails.  The only thing I don't like about these is the light stain that the electrolyte leaves, which shows a contrast between the parts that were coated and the parts that weren't.

     I have to give credit for this idea to my wife.  We had been looking for a "multiple-panel" piece of art to hang in our bedroom, and she suggested trying to do a paneled piece with the Lichtenberg Figures.  Each panel is 16" x 24" and was cut out of one piece of 2' x 4' MDF.  The panels were burned separately using many different points for the electrodes.  I tapered the electrolyte solution down to points at the edges of the panels to make sure that the burns lined up from one panel to the next.  Unfortunately I decided to use 1/2" thick MDF for this so that the panels would hang better and would be less likely to warp.  This thicker MDF was much more absorbent than the 1/4" MDF that I used for the previous burns, so the electrolyte soaked in quickly and created a thicker burn pattern with less detail.  I like the design, but I think I'll try it again with the thinner board.

Edit: Instead of making a whole new post I'm just adding the above picture to the end of this post. This is the three panel piece I did on the thinner, 1/4" MDF.  As I expected I ended up with a lot more detail.  I think in order for this to be worthy of hanging on a wall I'm going to have to add some color to it, so the next experiment will be to see how watercolor paint takes to MDF.

Creating Lichtenberg Figures with Microwave Oven Transformers

Obligatory Safety Warning:

     This is not comprehensive instructions on how to build one of these devices.  Please do not attempt this if you do not fully understand the concepts that you are working with, and even then, if you are not incredibly safety conscious this can easily kill you.  I have seen many videos on the internet of people doing this in a very unsafe manner.  Please do not emulate these videos.  This setup creates the potential of 4000 volts, which will jump an air gap.  This means that you do not have to actually touch this in order for it to kill you.  One little mistake can easily be lethal.  If you do undertake this project, always have a second person present to call 911 in case you only mortally wound yourself instead of killing yourself instantly.

      Now that I have absolved myself of the liability for anyone's death or injury, I'd like to assure my family and friends that I am doing this in an incredibly safe manner, and there is no need to be concerned for my safety.  Now, on to the fun.

Above are the two microwaves I will be disassembling.  If you ever decide to remove the outer housing from a microwave for any reason, please pay careful attention to the warning in the picture.  You can  verify that the caps are discharged by shorting the terminals with an insulated screwdriver.

 Look at all the neat stuff I was able to pull out of these two microwaves.  Only the transformers will be used in this project, but I'm sure the rest will come in handy in the future.

Above is the final project.  Not really that much to it.  The light bulb is just a safety precaution to remind me when it is powered up and dangerous.  Credit to the following website for the wiring schematic using two transformers for a total of 4000 volts: http://www.kronjaeger.com/hv/hv/src/mot/

Now for the real test.  For my first attempt I grabbed a scrap piece of red oak off the top of the wood pile.  I thought oak would absorb the electrolyte mixture better than other hardwoods due to it's porousness, but I was wrong.  Even with the electrodes just 4 inches apart nothing happened other than a little popping and crackling.  It seems that the rapidly produced heat evaporated the water leaving a dry patch around the electrodes, which prevented the current from going anywhere.  Next I tried poplar, thinking it might absorb the mixture a little better, but the results were the same.  I started to get discouraged, but I wasn't ready to give up yet.  A pine 2x4 led to the first success, although it wasn't very impressive.  In addition to a lack-luster pattern, as soon as the carbon trails got too close to each other the current arced through the air, and the dead short blew the fuse I had added as a safety precaution.  Luckily two microwaves equals two fuses, so on to the next trial attempt.  I used a small scrap piece of plywood because I had read that it would absorb the liquid into the first layer of laminate, but the glue made a water proof barrier to keep the mixture from soaking all the way down through the wood.  Sure enough, it worked much better than my previous attempts (video below):

A quick note on safety, there is a white isolation pad between the experiment and the table.  This is important since 4000 volts will jump through materials typically thought of as insulators in search of ground, so you can never have too much insulation.  In addition, all wiring on the secondary side of the circuit is rated for high voltage.  Typical electrical wire is rated for a maximum of 600V.  If you were to use anything other than wire rated for high voltage, such as is done on many internet videos, then you must treat the wire like it is bare copper.  It is an unnecessary risk.  Tangent over, let's move on.

Here is what it looked like after I scrubbed off the excess soot:

Not bad, but I think it would have turned out better if it had continued burning for longer.  Unfortunately it stopped when it did because it arced and blew my second and last 20amp/120V fuse.  I realized that if I continued in this manner I would go though quite a few fuses, and my Lichtenberg figures would all stop before reaching their full potential.  The fuse was my idea anyway, and I only used it because I harvested the fuse and fuse holder from the microwaves, so I thought "why not."  Now that I know why not, I decided to bypass it using the old "penny in the fuse box" trick.

That should do it.  If my new "fuse" blows than I have bigger problems than replacing it.  And I'm still protected by the 20 amp breaker for that circuit, so really this is not as unsafe as it might seem.

Here are a couple more videos using different types and thicknesses of plywood:

Here are the results from several more attempts using plywood:

I thought these turned out OK. but I still wasn't satisfied.  They burned too deep, and lacked the detail that I had seen when researching other people's Lichtenberg Figures, so I decided to try something else.  This time I used MDF, and it worked much better.  The designs are much more detailed and more like what I was looking for.  I didn't take any video of the MDF, but there was a lot less fire than there was with previous woods.  Here are the results:

Not bad for my first time.  When I first started this project I thought it would be something that I would mess around with for a weekend, and then put it on a shelf to gather dust with the rest of my short-lived interests, but I think I might do a little more experimenting with this before it gets retired.  All of the figures above were done by saturating the entire surface with electrolyte and using two fixed positions for the electrodes.  I think I might try some bigger ones where I only paint part of the surface with electrolyte in order to influence the flow of the current.  I might also try moving the electrodes around to different spots on the same piece.  We shall see.  If I never do another post on this subject it probably means that my attention was pulled in a different direction, and my fancy new Lichtenberg Figure machine has been retired to the shelf after all.