Pyrography tips explained – making it easy to choose the nibs you need for your particular project. Nibs are the second most important purchase you will need in your arsenal after buying your wood burning tool.
The tips are how you create your art and detailing on the material of your choice, whether it is wood, bone, gourds, leather, or paper.
There are 2 different wood burning tip types available.
- Solid Points or Tips
- Wire Tips
Adding good quality nibs to your wood burning set will make your ability to create much easier and more enjoyable.
Let’s get creative!
Get A Variety Of Wood Burner Tips To Create Beautiful Artwork
Below we will describe the two different types of nibs that are available for your burning tool.
On the market, there are a variety of pen tips, or nibs, to satisfy the needs of various artists and project types. The majority of tips are available in extra small, small, medium, and large sizes.
Detail work, calligraphy, and delicate linework benefit with smaller points. Many projects will benefit from larger sizes, which will result in bolder designs.
Depending on their art style and particular demands, pyrographers gather a variety of wood burning nibs in a variety of shapes and sizes.
Each nib performs a different function and creates its own unique texture and mark in your artwork.
Practice and experimentation are the only way to find out which pyrography pen tips suit your style and needs.
Let’s see what is available for you.
Types of Pyrography Tips Explained
Solid Points or Tips
The solid interchangeable tips are made from brass and screw into the front end of the burner.
The most used solid brass tip is called a universal tip and can be used for both fine line work and shading work.
Solid points are a great starting point for beginners to get the hang of how the wood burning tool works, how hot it gets, get control and mastery of techniques, and generally get comfortable with the tools.
A solid point will normally take longer to heat up, burn your wood, and cool down than a wire-tip will.
Moving on to the more intricate wire tips will then be easier to master.
Other common solid tips available are:
- Calligraphy tip – for lettering
- Flow tip – for large area fills
- Cone tip – for detailing
- Large shading tip – for adding shadows
Wood burner pen tips often come in different sizes and often shapes and names will vary depending on the manufacturer of your burning tool.
Wire Tips
These tips are perfect for shading, writing, and fine detailing in your artwork.
They are made from high-quality nichrome wire.
The wire tips work very well on light-colored leather, light wood, cork, gourds, and thick paper.
They also come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes.
You may have to practice a little with the different effects each nib creates and also get used to the pressure required. They are much more delicate than the brass solid tip points.
- Spoon points
- Feathering points
- Powerpoints
- Skew tips
- Spear tips
- Knife tips
- Groove tips
- Writing tips
- Ball Stylus tips
- Chisel shaders
The list is comprehensive!
Wire-nib pyrography tools are unquestionably faster in every way.
They heat up in a fraction of a second and cool down much faster than solid point burners. The wire-nibs take 10-20 seconds to heat up, whereas the solid-point nibs take 3-5 minutes (occasionally up to 10).
The time it takes to cool down is also significantly reduced. The wire itself cools in seconds, but the plastic case on the nibs and pens takes longer to cool down.
Conclusion To Pyrography Tips Explained
Knowing what wood burning nibs are available, what they can achieve, and how they work is the key to producing successful projects at a high standard of workmanship.
Most of your knowledge will come with experience and use of the various tips.
All we can say is – enjoy the journey, and be proud of your results.