Tried my hand at making some custom wedding monogram signs. Started with just one for a friends wedding, but now I have 4 more to make.
1/4" Baltic Birch with 1/8" letters. Sign is treated and stained cherry and letters are painted flat back before being glued in place.
Been getting some great feedback on these.
I am also selling them on my Etsy shop!
Nice work! Alcohol or better, household ammonia will remove the smoke stain easily.
Actually the feedback I received is that they like the burn marks. Makes it look old. Thats why I didn’t remove them.
These are really pretty. I’m sure everyone loves them!
A wonderful addition to a wedding celebration.
That’s awesome!
Hmmm, household ammonia – never tried that one, thanks for the info!
The burn marks add a cool effect to your piece.
When I was doing thousands of wooden tokens I was forced to find a quicker means of production. Full strength household ammonia works almost instantly to desolve the residue. That discovery saved me many hours!
Alcohol works, but requires more elbow and time. Initially using alcohol, I had to soak them for several minutes, and still it took more work to remove the smoke stain. Neither one raised the grain
Necessity is the Mother of Invention? Or maybe a need for speed is ;p I’ll have to get some on my next grocery trip!
Really? Ammonia? Nice tip
Really! I was surprised my first attempt at finding a more powerful solvent worked better than I had hoped.
The residue hardens over time, easier to clean soon after the deposit.
The burn mark thing seems to be in the eye of the beholder.
I was making all effort to mask everything to prevent it and one time I did not.
I offered to remake the item but they liked the char. Who knew?
If I am cutting a prototype before the finished project I have tended to not mask. Then you have something to show them and can mention the char could be there or be gone, up to them.
Great job!
In case you’re not aware, you can link your Etsy on your profile page and that way it’ll show up whenever someone clicks on your icon.
Thanks for the inspiration! I did a scan of cleaning agents I had on hand (no ammonia 
) And found a degreaser that is lye based, Super Clean. Not only does it take the resin smoke of immediately, it also did wonders for my GF grid tray 
.
That dirty dirty tray had been off-smoking the backs of all my cuts from the residue in the grid cells after ~4 years of cutting, and it is soooo much better now! I did spray everything down with white vinegar to neutralize afterwards, does ammonia have a way to neutralize it?
I couldn’t say, chemistry is weak with this one.
