Special Event Design

Burning Boards

Matt Holcomb from The Door Fellowship in Williamsport PA brings us these burnt boards for their stage design.

Matt started out making a 2″ x 2″ wood frame with 1″ x 6″ x 48″ pieces of rough cut lumber. The finished wall was 4′ W x 6′ H. Because he was using rough cut lumber, which can be a little more than 6″ wide, he had a little 1″ overlay at the top. He started nailing the 48″ pieces on from the bottom. He made sure to have a sturdy base because rough cut lumber can get heavy.

Matt then printed out letters and logos on 13″ x 19″ matte finish photo paper and made stencils to trace on the wood. He took a torch to make the letters and logos.

For the bottom letters, Matt sanded the area smooth and then printed the words out on legal sized copier paper. For transferring letters or images to wood, use copier paper on a laser jet printer only and mirror the image in the printer settings. He then taped the paper to the wood and liberally applied acetone while going over the letters with the handle of a butter knife. In this case the letters weren’t bold enough, so he filled them in with a sharpie. He clamped them together in the back and screwed them to the floor.

The lighting was simple can lights with 45-watt bulbs.

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Portable Stage Design Wicked Garden

15 responses to “Burning Boards”

  1. Isaac Elsner says:

    How much did all the wood material cost?

  2. marti says:

    Hi,

    I’m looking for this kind of burner for a long time and don’t know how they call it and where to buy. Could you tell me what kind of burner tool you used?

    I appreciate so much your answer!

    • Terry says:

      Home Depot lowes any hardware store where they sell plumbing. It is a plumbers torch for solding pipes together.

    • Jason says:

      I burn my wood with a small torch. Can be purchased at lowes home depot some ggas stations. Just a small butane burning torch works fine for me

  3. Aaron says:

    What did you use to shield the areas you didnt want burned?

  4. John Coonradt jr. says:

    Get some wood pallets an take them apart cut to size an make your frame to be touched. You can get pallets any where for nothing.Make sure you ask most want to get rid of them.

  5. Kaci says:

    How big of a flame does that particular torch put out? I found one at Lowe’s I was wanting to get but it said it had a “pencil lead” flame or something like that and that didn’t sound very big. Just curious!

    • Get a plumber torch at Lowe’s with a starter trigger adjust the flame the way you want. Burning your projects is and art practice, practice, practice.

    • Heyward Shepherd says:

      Get the plumbers torch and get one with a selection of burners in diferent shapes. See which one works best for your project.

  6. Edward says:

    I think something like this would work…
    http://www.amazon.com/dp/B017UZOAOE

  7. james sosebee says:

    How do you protect the curved letters as you burn?

  8. Corey Jones says:

    Super creative, thank you for sharing!

    Be careful folks, pallets burn GREAT!

  9. yvette reynolds says:

    how you made the letter C or makes curves

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