Today we’re focussing in on our process by testing out wood burning with ammonium chloride. It’s a great opportunity to take you through the trials and tribulations of a potential project in the making!

Hubs and I do a lot of hands on research before we even ‘start’ a project and wood burning with ammonium chloride is no exception. If you think our instructions have a lot of detail, you should see all the behind the scenes work that goes into perfecting each step! That’s so we can be assured you’ll get the same outcome if you try one of our projects yourself 😉.

Where to Buy Ammonium Chloride for Wood Burning

* [If you’re looking for some of the things we used, we’ve got you covered (disclosure): Clicking on the affiliate links in this post means we may receive a commission. But don’t worry, you don’t pay a cent more and it helps us make more unique crafts to share with you! Thanks for helping to support our blog!]

• Ammonium chloride
• Thick It (or Xanthan Gum)
• Cricut Cutting Machine (optional – can cut stencil by hand instead)
• Heat gun
• Wood board

I started with a piece of shelf liner from the dollar store as my vinyl sticker and cabinet grade plywood.

Cut Stencil

You could use any Cricut vinyl cutting machine to cut your stencil. But I thought cutting by hand into the wood itself would eliminate the possibility of seepage underneath the vinyl. Again, I think a better quality vinyl might be key – and using a Cricut will save time!

Once the design (our logo) was cut we took it outside to spray with a clear sealer.

Seal with Clear Coat

Two light coats of waterbased exterior clear coat was applied. Then we let it dry.

Wood Burning with Ammonium Chloride

Although ammonium chloride is used as a food additive in ‘salty liquorice’, it’s mildly acidic so can cause eye, skin, and respiratory system irritation. We recommend doing this outdoors in a well ventilated area and using gloves, goggles and even a respirator if you are sensitive.

Ammonium chloride wood burning recipe

Online research shows that most people are using a ratio of 1 tablespoon of ammonium chloride to half a cup of water to create the wood burning solution. I used warm water and only half the amounts noted because we were only doing a small test. I find a little goes a long way.

How to Make Wood Burning Paste

Wood Burning with Thick It

Many complained of bleeding with this technique so a wood burning paste with help with that. One blogger added a scoop of Thick It to the mix. I figure that’s about 1/4 teaspoon for the full strength mix (or 1/8 tsp here). You may have to adjust and add more Thick It if necessary as one reader pointed out.

How to Thicken Ammonium Chloride

Thick It used to be a great buy in the States at under $10, however is still under $20. But in Canada it’s obviously more expensive due to the exchange rate. You don’t have to splurge money on something you’ll hardly use! So we substitute Xanthan gum which is a thickener we use in our gluten free recipes. However, Xanthan gum does not dissolve well in liquid and it just gets lumpy. I shook it, stirred it and let it sit to absorb. It didn’t get as thick as I would have liked to prevent runs. Try microwaving and stirring well to incorporate it and get it to gel, then let it cool.

Blend Ammonium Mixture

To combat the issue, one reader gave the Xanthan gum/ammonium chloride solution a few pulses with the immersion blender and it thickened right up. We actually keep a separate one just for mixing paint and such so give it a try!

Peel off the stencil. Once the xanthan gum is well dissolved, grab a detail brush…

… and a heat gun.

Wood Burning with Heat Gun

Brush the wood burning solution onto the parts that are still bare wood and let dry.

Set the temperature. I set the heat gun to the highest setting (4).

Keep the gun moving around; don’t keep it in any one spot for too long.

I could have stopped with just a light shade. But I continued and got a great dark effect. However, you can also see a fair amount of bleeding along the grain of the wood. If this was a ‘real’ project and not just a test, I’d be disappointed about that.

Lessons Learned

Here are a few suggestions based on our first time using Ammonium chloride:

1. Always test a sample of the wood you intend to use.
2. Use a light touch with the heat gun. Darker shades tend to bleed more. Or at least, it’s more noticeable!
3. Experiment with different woods to see if one works better than another.

Wood Burning with Ammonium Chloride

Trial and Error

I found that there was more error than success in wood burning with ammonium chloride. As a matter of fact, I would consider the technique a complete fail if we didn’t learn so much along the way! Stick with us and hopefully we’ll improve it to the point that it’s good enough for one of our projects! No guarantees, but we’ll give it the ‘ol college try at some point and see what happens!

Using Ammonium Chloride to Burn Wood

Watch the Video (and subscribe)

Have a look at our quick video to see it all unfold in real time!

Wood Burning Ideas

Blogger Laura Kampf had great success with her logo but she definitely used a better quality vinyl than I tested and also cut hers with a vinyl cutter. Perhaps the type of wood she uses makes a difference too.

Laura’s logo is a negative stencil and has thicker lettering. Those factors probably helped make it more legible after using the ammonium chloride solution.

We’re excited by the possibilities so we’re not going to give up! Below you can see three other samples we did on bare wood, with a coat of clear coat and with some dry brushed white paint plus a clear coat. All these samples used the same dollar store shelf liner and liquid solution mixed for our logo. As you can see, the last one looks pretty good with hardly any bleed at all.

It’s really hard to say definitively why some samples worked but the logo didn’t! More testing will hopefully help resolve some of those lingering questions.

If you don’t want to make your own wood burning solution, you can also try a ready made Scorch Marker.

Lessons Learned Wood Burning with Ammonium Chloride

Hindsight is 20/20, so what would I do differently? Use the best quality vinyl. It may help prevent seepage in subsequent steps, like when we spray a top coat to seal. Also, if you leave the sticker on too long, the adhesive backing might contribute to resisting the ammonium chloride solution. The stickers on the first two were left a few days. The last sample didn’t sit for too long – about a day while the clear coat dried.

I suspect the type and grain of wood factors into the mix! The first board almost looks ‘striped’. My guess it that the liquid didn’t soak into the wood properly because of the uneven grain. On the other hand, the second board appears to have a medium grain and the last board a tighter grain. I believe each sample came from different pallets so you never know what you’re gonna get with salvaged wood!

Lastly, as one of my readers suggests, try short bursts of the heat gun and hold it further away.

I’m glad we didn’t go straight to a project-in-progress. As this test proves, it pays to take the time to make samples boards first. For our next trial, I’m going to do a better job of thickening the mixture and use a better vinyl.

How to Burn Wood With Ammonium Chloride

Here is a recap of the steps:

1. Cut stencil by hand or use a Cricut
2. Apply stencil to wood and seal with several light coats of clear coat. Let dry overnight.
3. Mix wood burning solution (see printable recipe below).
4. Peel stencil and brush solution onto the bare wood
5. Let dry.
6. Set heat gun to high. Keep the gun moving until desired effect is achieved.

One Small Success with Transferring to Wood

My one success for the week was transferring a (reverse image) paper printout of our logo to wood using a clear coat to adhere it. We spray the front of the paper with the clear coat, then apply it onto the wood. After letting it dry over night, I wet the paper and then rubbed it away.

I’m happy with how well it turned out. Save for the trace bits of paper I didn’t have the patience to rub off before photographing it, and the build up of clear coat around the edges, I’m pretty happy with the outcome!

This image transfer technique is perfectly suitable for images with finer details, like the wording of our logo 🙂

We Love Hearing from You

If you play with this chemical wood burning and/or transfer technique, or have in the past, we’d love to hear about it. Leave us a comment so we can all benefit from the feedback 🙂

Do you have any less than successful projects you’re determined to improve on next year too? Tell us about it in the comments!

Luckily all is not lost because 99.9% of our projects do work out! You can check them out on our Homepage.

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Chemical Wood Burning FAQs

What’s a good wood burning paste recipe?

• 1 tablespoon of ammonium chloride per half a cup of warm water.
• Add 1/4 tsp of Thick It, xanthan gum or corn starch to turn it into a wood burning gel. Stir well. See the printable recipe card below.