By Jessica Ansley of Artbucket Creations
It’s HAMMER TIME!
After last Fathers Day, I told myself that if I never saw another hammer I would die a happy woman. I must be going insane because here I am featuring them on my website and selling them like crazy on my local Facebook sites! Many people LOVE these custom hammers with the little sayings on them, and they love them even more when the sayings are GUARANTEED not to come off without some heavy sanding!
Yes, that is right. Today you will learn how to create a custom hammer for fathers day, with a saying that is not going to come off. We are going to do that with WOOD BURNING. Check out the instructions and video below!
Supplies List:
16 oz or larger WOODEN claw hammer
Sihouette Cameo or other vinyl machine
Stenciling material such as Oracal 631 or 651 if you are only doing the decal portion.
A Marker or pencil
Transfer Tape
Wood Burning Tool
Various different burning points such as a FLOW point for your wood burning tool.
Weeding Tool or X-Acto Knife
Sand paper- 220 grit or higher
Rubbing Alcohol
Tape Measure
Instructions:
1. The first thing we have to do is prepare our hammer. To do that, we need to remove all stickers and sticky residue, along with the clear top coat that the manufacturers put on their hammers. This part is the most CRUCIAL step. If any residue from the stickers or the clear coat is left, you will make a huge mess of your hammer when wood burning. Both of these burn faster than the regular wood, so you end up spreading outside your lines that you draw. Sand your hammer with your 220 grit sand paper.
2. After cleaning and preparing your hammer, measure the length of your hammer handle and the width. You want to be sure that when sizing your designs, you stay within those limits. I make sure to fit the height of my words to the smallest width so that they will fit in all areas of the hammer. If it can fit in the smallest, it will definitely fit in the largest area. Make sense? Great! Moving on!
3. Cut your design on your machine. Apply your transfer tape BEFORE WEEDING YOUR DESIGN. This is how we start the process of REVERSE WEEDING. After applying the transfer tape, remove your vinyl AND transfer tape from the paper backing. Then use your weeding tool to remove all of your unwanted vinyl, while the letters remain attached to the transfer tape. This keeps the small letters from moving around on your when weeding. This technique saved me hours of time and frustration last year and I haven’t gone back to “normal weeding” when creating hammers, since then.
4. Once everything is weeded, you can apply your decal straight to the wood handle of the hammer. If you are only wanting to do the decal and not do the wood burning part, then all you have left to do is clear coat with an epoxy. A lot of other sealers tend to cause my vinyl to lift, but epoxy is permanent. I use a two part epoxy called AMAZING CLEAR CAST.
5. After applying your decal, if you are moving on to the wood burning portion of our lesson, you will want to TRACE your letters using a marker or a good pencil. I have also used a piece of chalk and just rubbed it all over the letters.
6. Remove your decal after tracing and warm up your wood burning tool.
*** I want to add a HUGE DISCLAIMER HERE. Please, if you have younger children that are curious, please do NOT do the wood burned part around them. A year ago, I made the mistake of using a wood burner around my son, and even though it was unplugged and I had it high on our 8 foot cat tree, he still managed to grab it while it was cooling down and I while I was tending to my daughter. It resulted in 2nd degree burns on his little hand , and I won the WORST MOTHER OF THE YEAR award.All it takes is one second of looking away for them to grab it and no craft is worth the potential risk of our children!.***
7. I like to use a flow point for this project, so might I suggest the same. It makes things easier and you can slide it across your traced letters. Begin burning your letters into the wood.
8. Once finished, I like to add a coat of polycrylic to my hammers, just to bring out the nice colors in the wood.
9. Marvel at your awesome creation!
Check out the commercial use designs ALREADY SIZED to fit a traditional 16 oz claw hammer! Click HERE.
Check out the TUTORIAL VIDEO below!
***Any of the linked phrases will take you to where you can purchase these items! There may be affiliate links on this page. That does not mean that it will cost you any extra to use them. It only means I make receive a small percentage for the referral. These funds make it so that I can continue to make awesome tutorials for you!
Crafting While Adulting 