How To Make Wooden Bookends
Combine traditional joinery with traditional woodturning to create bespoke bookends. With handmade dovetail joints finished with wood turned detailing, these bookends will look impressive on any bookshelf.
Pyrography Bookmarks | How To
What you'll need
Pyrography is a simple way to elevate any project. In this How To we show you how you can use pyrography to decorate almost anything including these leather bookmarks.
We show you how to cut and shape your leather bookmark and how to decorate them using metal stamps and pyrography techniques. As well as leather bookmarks, we also show you how to make a veneer alternative.
Watch Ben in our Woodworking Wisdom demo or follow our step by step guide below.
Cut your bookmark to size
For the leather bookmark we are using a vegetable tan leather. This is important if you are burning with pyrography as other tans can give off a toxic smoke. Cut your leather to size using the steel rule and cutting knife.
To cut the tassels in the leather we drew a line 25mm from one end with a pencil, then, using downwards pressure with the rule, cut each line with 3-4mm spacing. The pressure from the rule will stop the leather stretching when cutting.
Create your design
Draw your design out on the leather, lightly with a pencil. This will rub off with a pencil eraser later.
Turn the pyro unit down. It is good to start below half with the power setting as leather burns at a lot lower temperature than wood. Burn your chosen design in with the pyrography unit.
Decorate using the stamps. It may be worth testing on some scrap leather. You want to strike the back of the stamp with a firm whack being careful not to let the hammer bounce. This may cause the image to appear twice.
Finish by picking out details with pyrography and add colour to suit.
Try a veneer alternative
To make the veneer bookmarks, start by cutting two pieces of veneer the same size. Try sticking a piece of masking tape where the cut exits the veneer to help stop it splitting.
Glue the two pieces together. When applying the glue, you will notice the veneer will tend to curl. Stick them together back-to-back and place some weight on top. Set aside to dry.
Decorate with pyrography when the glue has dried or cut to shape on scroll saw
Want more?
Enjoyed making this book related project, then you might like this! Try our bookends project.
If you have enjoyed making these projects, they share your pictures with us! Search and tag @axminstertools on Facebook or Instagram. Or upload to our online gallery.
