Carved Santa Pencil

Hello Gforgers!

BLUF - I’m new and only had my GF for a few days. Today I decided to see if I could replicate my old hobby of wood carving Santas on pencils. Let the adventure begin… I learned so much today.

  1. Needed to make a jig to hold pencils - done

  2. I needed to find an old carving to try and replicate - done

  3. Test the transfer from image to wood, lots of test on draft wood before moving to pencil, then lots more test there, but I got it done. Here are the best settings I found today.
    GFsettings

  4. Holding the pencil(s) in the jig worked great for both sizes, however aligning the image to the pencil consistently, wow was that hard. After many failed attempts, I came across the link below; do yourself a favor and make this fiducial ruler now. It works great. Prints lined up great every time like some kind of magic. Perfect Alignment Every Time - The Fiducial Alignment Ruler (design in post)

  5. I didn’t have the required magnets, so I found this honeycomb pin template. The magnets are on order as well. These pins worked like a charm to hold the ruler and jig in place. Honeycomb bed holdown pins

Just a few of the test here.

Here you can see it all coming together…

Side view showing the relief.

It’s not perfect. I’m still going to play with it more. Maybe a touch white stain to bring out the depth. Lots of more designs to put on these first-grade pencils.

DK

P.S. I forgot to put the files for the pencil jig and santa image. Here you go.

PencilJig.svg.zip (9.4 KB)

55 Likes

Pretty cool, never would have thought of that. The results so far are pretty great

2 Likes

You are steamin’ right along for a beginner!

2 Likes

Very impressive!!!

1 Like

That is AWESOME! Totally cool Santa pencil!!!

1 Like

Thanks for sharing the file of this amazing design–great result after only a handful of tests in a couple days on your new GF! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with after a few weeks & months now!!

1 Like

Fantastic! And as you use up the pencil you are trimming his beard.

By the way, settings information is only allowed in the Beyond The Manual section, so I’ve moved this post there for you. If you prefer to make a separate posting in Beyond the Manual for just the settings info and take it out of this post, let me know and I’ll move it back.

5 Likes

What I want to know is - how were you doing it in the past? By hand?

3 Likes

Very cool

1 Like

Welcome. It is obvious that you will be making some great contributions to the community.

1 Like

Those are very cool. They’re unique - not seen on here before :blush::santa:

1 Like

Wow, nice job going through the forum and finding all the answers and tools you needed.

And adding to our combined knowledge. Great setup! I need to order a case of pencils now!

1 Like

Fantastic job working through to achieve a great success!

1 Like

No worries. I’m new here, so just guide me sensei.

2 Likes

Yes I carved them using some wood carving tools. Could knock one out in 30min or so. Gave away to family and friends. Took 3.5min to make on GF Plus.

6 Likes

Great job! BTW magnets can cause fan errors/issues so as long as the honeycomb pins are working for you I would highly suggest sticking with them.

You are off to a such a good start and obviously have done your homework.

1 Like

Niiiiice!

1 Like

Thanks for the tip. The pins work great thus far.

2 Likes

That’s fabulous

Before you try stain, you might try washing it off - I use a toothbrush and hand sanitizer, others use everything from toothpaste (not gel) to Fast Orange, but give it a scrub and see if removing some of the ash brings out the carving :slight_smile:

3 Likes

Thank you deirdrebeth! Great advice. I just uses running water and a stiff brush. Didn’t even think to clean the debris off! Newb move forsure. Before and after pic.

14 Likes