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DIY Graeme Priddle Style Wood Vaporizer System

D

Dion Wisniewski

Joined
Dec 31, 2023
Messages
8
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59
Location
Atlantic Beach, FL
Searching for a more detailed explanation on making a vaporizing system. I have no electrical experience, and accept all risk. Even thought I hear this set up is very low risk. nobody in my club seems to know how to make one otherwise I'd consult there. any help is appreciated.

Im also open to suggestions of any unit out there that puts out same power as a vaporizor . currently using an optima , and its not enough power.
 
What is a wood vaporizer?

At first blush, it sounds like something that skips the normal wood combustion process of burning and brings it right to the gaseous state. I'm guessing it is something different.
 
I built one and it works great. You will discover that not every battery charger has the same design, so it took me a while to understand what each of the parts do, which ones I needed to bypass, what type of dimmer you need, and how to install a fuse.
 
you need a battery charger that dies not have all the electronics. It's been a long time since I built mine and I seldom use it because my Optima burner does what I need 99% of the time. I do very little branding style burning where you need a lot if heat
I'm pretty sure you can find instructions by doing a Google search looking fir Greame priddle woid vaporizor.
ravenview.com

How To Make A Priddle Vaporizer 1000 - Ravenview

You may have noticed we use a fair amount of pyrography on our turned pieces. This is possible largely in part to, what we call, the Priddle Vaporizer.
ravenview.com ravenview.com
 
I've had this on my computer for a very, very long time ... but still haven't built my "vaporizer". One thing I do remember is that you need a manual charger and not an automatic one ... very hard to find these days. There may be a way to bypass the automatic electronics but I don't have a clue. Hope this helps.
Link won't post and I don't have an available "edit" button. ????
Graeme Priddle Vaporizer
 
Dion, Good luck. My attempts to make a vaporizor in the last few years have required a great deal of bypassing fancy electronics and were far from simple. I suspect that making one with a MODERN battery charger is well beyond most people. I am not going to attempt it again.
The problem is MODERN battery chargers have a lot of electronics built into them that are designed to disable the charger if you short the outputs. When you make a vaporizor you are shorting the outputs. So, you have to defeat or remove these electronics. But, they make things with as few parts as possible. Thus bypassing or removing only some of the electronics is not possible. You have to rewire everything from scratch. To do this you need to really understand how rectifiers work, etc.

Its like cars and trucks. 40 years ago, they hard distributor and points. You could work on your own car. Tune it up. No more! Now you need hook up your car to a fancy computer. You can't do it yourself for a reasonable cost.

I now recommend people get the "Burnmaster" unit made by Woodcarvers Supply. It gets hotter than anything else.


carlford.us

Woodburners & Pyrography ⋆ Carl Ford Studio Woodturner

Carl's take on the best Woodburners, Tips, & Books for woodturners. What he recommends for his students.
carlford.us

Note: I live in New York state. In NY all batter chargers you can purchase now have electronics that detect a short and disable the charger. Is this only NY state? I don't known. You many be able to find a simple one in other states. But, probably not. Manufacturers like to make products they can sell in all 50 states.
 
Carl Ford said:
Dion, Good luck. My attempts to make a vaporizor in the last few years have required a great deal of bypassing fancy electronics and were far from simple. I suspect that making one with a MODERN battery charger is well beyond most people. I am not going to attempt it again.
The problem is MODERN battery chargers have a lot of electronics built into them that are designed to disable the charger if you short the outputs. When you make a vaporizor you are shorting the outputs. So, you have to defeat or remove these electronics. But, they make things with as few parts as possible. Thus bypassing or removing only some of the electronics is not possible. You have to rewire everything from scratch. To do this you need to really understand how rectifiers work, etc.

Its like cars and trucks. 40 years ago, they hard distributor and points. You could work on your own car. Tune it up. No more! Now you need hook up your car to a fancy computer. You can't do it yourself for a reasonable cost.

I now recommend people get the "Burnmaster" unit made by Woodcarvers Supply. It gets hotter than anything else.


carlford.us

Woodburners & Pyrography ⋆ Carl Ford Studio Woodturner

Carl's take on the best Woodburners, Tips, & Books for woodturners. What he recommends for his students.
carlford.us

Note: I live in New York state. In NY all batter chargers you can purchase now have electronics that detect a short and disable the charger. Is this only NY state? I don't known. You many be able to find a simple one in other states. But, probably not. Manufacturers like to make products they can sell in all 50 states.
Click to expand...
I agree with Carl. Just get a burnmaster unit and forget tge battery charger. You'll waste more money trying to jury rig a charger.
 
Burnmaster. And if you buy a new one, there is a small opening at the #4 on the dial. That opening allows you to insert a small allen wrench and turn up the heat. Essentially making the top end of your burner go from a 10 to 12.
 
I use a burn master for most stuff. If I’m doing a heavily branded piece, I’ll use the vaporizer I built a couple years ago. With all of the electronics in the current chargers, it’s not really worth it to convert one. The only components of the charger I bought that I am using are the transformer and the case. When Graeme and Melissa travel, they use a Colwood which has terminals to directly connect the hand piece at the back. The connection and small wire gage cord are the weak points of most of the commercial systems.
 
I see old style battery chargers all the time at estate sales. $5-$10. I have a couple different commercial systems. Nothing I have has the recovery time of a vaporizer. I also use a good sized soldering iron for my half bead work.
 

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Mark Jundanian said:
Out of curiosity, only, has anyone used Jacque Vesery's Prescribed Burn?
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I have one. It's the dual unit, wood burner and power carver. I use it primarily for when I'm traveling for demos and workshops, because it is surprisingly light weight, and one machine to do two jobs take less packing space. The woodburning unit is pretty powerful. The power carving doesn't have a lot of torque, so I would not rely on it for a lot of heavy stock removal.
 
Donna Banfield said:
I have one. It's the dual unit, wood burner and power carver. I use it primarily for when I'm traveling for demos and workshops, because it is surprisingly light weight, and one machine to do two jobs take less packing space. The woodburning unit is pretty powerful. The power carving doesn't have a lot of torque, so I would not rely on it for a lot of heavy stock removal.
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Donna how does the Vesery compare to the burn master? bottom line is , I need way more heat for the embellishing I'm doing. only interested in burning not carving. Currently have an Optima.
 
Dion Wisniewski said:
Donna how does the Vesery compare to the burn master? bottom line is , I need way more heat for the embellishing I'm doing. only interested in burning not carving. Currently have an Optima.
Click to expand...
I don't know of any Optima system that can handle high heat, to the degree needed to pyro-carve or brand. The Burnmaster will handle high heat and pyro-carve quite well. Unless you travel and demo both carving and high heat burning, which is the primary reason I use Jacques' system, the Burnmaster and any micromotor power carver will do what you need all the time.
 
Dion, I build the wood burner/vaporizer some. 15 years ago, still have the pictures here.

I did use a manual battery charger, that will be what you should find, and use.

I kept my charger as is, so that I can still use it and kept things simple.

On the bottom right front is the 120V power plug that feeds into the LH box for the variable power (Dimmer switch) and then out to the RH box where the charger is plugged into. and te charger gets the adjusted power from there, the thick black wire with the black plug is what goes to the charger.
wood burner.jpg
from the charger come the two clamps (normally clamped onto the batterie) they clamp onto the two power poles that have the flexible wire for the handle and the burning wire.
wood burner 1.jpg
I build the handle and used heavy components so it would not heat up quickly.
wood burner 2.jpg
use thicker wire as thinner will burn up quickly.
wood burner 3.jpg
 
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Donna Banfield said:
I don't know of any Optima system that can handle high heat, to the degree needed to pyro-carve or brand. The Burnmaster will handle high heat and pyro-carve quite well. Unless you travel and demo both carving and high heat burning, which is the primary reason I use Jacques' system, the Burnmaster and any micromotor power carver will do what you need all the time.
Click to expand...
So do I understand that the Burnmaster will produce more heat than the Prescribed Burn?
 
Leo Van Der Loo said:
Dion, I build the wood burner/vaporizer some. 15 years ago, still have the pictures here.

I did use a manual battery charger, that will be what you should find, and use.

I kept my charger as is, so that I can still use it and kept things simple.

On the bottom right front is the 120V power plug that feeds into the LH box for the variable power (Dimmer switch) and then out to the RH box where the charger is plugged into.
View attachment 63852
from the charger come the two clamps (normally clamped onto the batterie) they clamp onto the two power poles that have the flexible wire for the handle and the burning wire.
View attachment 63853
I build the handle and used heavy components so it would not heat up quickly.
View attachment 63854
use thicker wire as thinner will burn up quickly.
View attachment 63855
Click to expand...
thank you, like the simplicity
 
Mark Jundanian said:
So do I understand that the Burnmaster will produce more heat than the Prescribed Burn?
Click to expand...
No, I think that Jacques’ and Burnmaster are about equal in heat, provided you use that Allen wrench trick to tweak the Burnmaster. However, Jacques’ handpiece is far superior to Burnmaster’s.
 
Donna Banfield said:
No, I think that Jacques’ and Burnmaster are about equal in heat, provided you use that Allen wrench trick to tweak the Burnmaster. However, Jacques’ handpiece is far superior to Burnmaster’s.
Click to expand...
Donna do you know if the Graem Priddle pen works with the burn master. I like to run hot and make my own tips.

rs=w:600,h:600
 
Priddle sure has a low profile on the internet these days. I thought the original was all hard wired, but I've never witnessed him using it. When did you see him Kevin?
 
I took a class with him and Melissa in ‘21 and again last fall. Both at Dale Larson’s place. In ‘21, he had vaporizers with him. He told me what I needed to know to build one and I bought a hand piece from him. Last year he just had a Colwood with the hand piece pictured above attached. He said that’s all they take now when they fly (they drove in ‘21). On the vaporizer, the hand piece is attached directly to the cables that would go to the car battery.
 
Dion Wisniewski said:
Donna do you know if the Graem Priddle pen works with the burn master. I like to run hot and make my own tips.

rs=w:600,h:600
Click to expand...
Yes. Graeme makes the handpieces with the correct connector to use with the Burnmaster. Graeme and Melissa have been busy building a school, so that's why they seem to be under the radar.
 
Dion Wisniewski said:
Searching for a more detailed explanation on making a vaporizing system. I have no electrical experience, and accept all risk. Even thought I hear this set up is very low risk. nobody in my club seems to know how to make one otherwise I'd consult there. any help is appreciated.

Im also open to suggestions of any unit out there that puts out same power as a vaporizor . currently using an optima , and its not enough power.
Click to expand...
You may want to watch this video https://youtu.be/tBwXnVEwSmE
 
Dion Wisniewski said:
Searching for a more detailed explanation on making a vaporizing system. I have no electrical experience, and accept all risk. Even thought I hear this set up is very low risk. nobody in my club seems to know how to make one otherwise I'd consult there. any help is appreciated.

Im also open to suggestions of any unit out there that puts out same power as a vaporizor . currently using an optima , and its not enough power.
Click to expand...
You may want to check out this link Video
View: https://youtu.be/tBwXnVEwSmE

Better than the battery system.
 
Dion Wisniewski said:
Searching for a more detailed explanation on making a vaporizing system. I have no electrical experience, and accept all risk. Even thought I hear this set up is very low risk. nobody in my club seems to know how to make one otherwise I'd consult there. any help is appreciated.

Im also open to suggestions of any unit out there that puts out same power as a vaporizor . currently using an optima , and its not enough power.
Click to expand...
I have made one out of an old school battery charger. It works well does vaporising so easy :) Really found it hard to control either not enough burn or total vapours
 
Dion Wisniewski said:
Searching for a more detailed explanation on making a vaporizing system. I have no electrical experience, and accept all risk. Even thought I hear this set up is very low risk. nobody in my club seems to know how to make one otherwise I'd consult there. any help is appreciated.

Im also open to suggestions of any unit out there that puts out same power as a vaporizor . currently using an optima , and its not enough power.
Click to expand...
Check out this video -
View: https://youtu.be/tBwXnVEwSmE
 
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