Woodburning is an excellent crafting hobby to take your creative talents from paper onto some good, high-quality wood.
And pyrography pens are your standard tool for the job! There are many types of these pens in the market, and they all function differently. But if you want to get started on woodburning as a hobby, you might find it confusing to choose your first woodburning kit, and that’s why we’re here! To help you choose the right woodburning kit!
What to Look for in a Pyrography Pen
These are the basic things you want to look for in your first pyrography pen. They are all necessary to help make your first woodburning experience be as smooth as it can be. DO NOT skip these qualities!
- Simple and Easy-to-Use
Simplicity is important whenever you’re starting anything new. You want something that is easy to pick up and learn, so a pen that is just that will be perfect to begin your woodburning hobby.
- Light-weight and Ergonomic
Your comfort is also very important when handling your pyrography pen. You want to choose a pen that is comfortable to wield so you can avoid any work cramps. Light-weight is just as important to avoid any extensive fatigue from working on one big project or several projects at a time.
- Customizable
There are several different ways to customize a pyrography pen, so you wouldn’t want to get stuck with just one standard tip that can only do simple boring lines, right? Your pen has to have a degree of customizability to account for different projects, designs, and even different wood surfaces so you can be versatile in the workshop.
- Quick-Heating
You don’t want to stand around and wait for too long while your pen heats up, so you want something that can heat up quickly to save you time and energy when working.
Customizable Options
Now that we’ve established that a customizable pen is very important to jumpstart your woodburning hobby, here are the things that you should look for to be able to customize.
- Interchangeable Pen Tips
You’ll need different pen tips for different designs and you want to be able to change from thick lines to thin ones for the finer details pretty easily. There are also pen tips that do something different altogether, so you should look for a pen that can do everything and that can switch among those tips without hassle.
- Temperature Control
Your pens can also achieve different effects at different temperatures, so you’ll want to have a way to change temperatures depending on your project. Look for a pen that allows you to change the temperature so you can easily switch if you’re going to work on other gourds.
Of course, woodburning is not just your pyrography pen. There are many other things that you’ll get to experiment to round out your woodburning kit, which we cover in our Basics of Wood Burning. But to give you an idea, you’ll need the right type of wood, sandpaper for pen tip maintenance, pliers, as well as certain tools for heat safety.
That should cover your first foray into selecting a pyrography pen. As you gain experience with woodburning, you’ll want to branch out and try more specialized kits. But if you want to start with something simple and easy to use, you can check out Chandler Tool’s Woodburning Kit!
