Shou Sugi Ban

[Justintime]

So here is the Reg Mombassa limited print brought in before Christmas, a present for the husband. (Reg Mombassa did all of the Mambo clothing designs in the 80's-90's. The customers were an advertising agency creative team, so like to be very involved in the design process. The wife wanted something that gave a nod to the image and the title "Carbone with gums and koala". So playing on the "carbone"/carbon theme, could we experiment with the japanese burning technique. So, it's a fairly straighforward process with a canister gas gun, it was just about burning enough for the start of the charcoal look. Within reason, I don't think I could have overdone it but it was easy to underdo it, as you can see from the black sample chevron on the right. I experimented with a much lesser burnt ash look too, as on the left (if the photo loads the right way around...unlikely..)

Here are some of the images of the finished piece.

[vintage frames]

That is such a clever and simple thing to do.
I bet your customer loved it.
Whilst you can take all the kudos for the idea, one thing extra you could have done was to 'rough-carve' off the inner and outer edges, free-hand with a Stanley knife, nicking off the corners as well.
Then sand all your workings back with some 320grit paper
Finally attack it with your blow torch.

Whoever said there was no creativity on this forum.

[Justintime]

The sample on the right in the top photo was lightly scorched, black but not heavily charred. (not that obvious in the photo). The problem with it was that it looked identical to a painted wood frame once it had a coat of flat matt on top (which was necessary to seal the charring).

[Justintime]

Yes. That is exactly what I meant by "a coat of dead flat matt on top". Exactly that.
Durable? Once sealed it seems very stable.

[Justintime]

Dermot, you are right. This finish could be taken a lot further in future. Small steps. During this design process, I did come up with some other ideas, mainly variations of stains, which although she didn't go for, gave us some time to experiment and create some more samples for the wall. I don't have any pics of those atm.

[theframer]

Very interesting how did you get the uniform lines on the burnt ash look sample,
Great work btw

[Justintime]

Thanks, the uniform lines are the wood grain. It is actually burnt ash! I just used the gas burner like you'd use a speay gun, slow even passes.

[theframer]

Thanks Justin