How to clean the residue off your gourd after wood burning.
Now that your gourd has been wood burned, you are pretty anxious to clearly see it and admire it. The gourd however, probably has resinous residue along the wood burned lines and maybe some sticky tape residue and maybe even some glue (depending on how you attached your pattern before burning) and pencil lines. My gourds usually have lots of pencil lines and some penciled in notes and lots of sticky stuff everywhere.
There are several ways of cleaning your gourd after wood burning:
- Use a pencil eraser to remove the pencil lines
- Dawn dish soap and water
- Watered down Murphy’s oil soap in a ratio of 10:1
- Mr. Clean Magic Eraser or generic version
- Baby wipes
- Rubbing alcohol
For several years, I used rubbing alcohol and cotton balls to scrub that baby down. I had to really scrub sometimes because I tend to have a lot of pencil lines all over my gourds. It made me feel good though, thinking the gourd was now extra clean. Plus the added bonus that I like the smell of rubbing alcohol. Ok, I’m a bit weird.
Now, older and wiser, I use generic baby wipes from the dollar store. There are 80 wipes in the package I purchased and I usually only need one per gourd. Two wipes if it is a large gourd. The wipes get all the resin, glue, tape, pencil lines, graphite lines and just about everything else off quickly and easily. Keep the package sealed and they will last a long time. I’ve been using the same package for about two years now.
Now your gourd is as clean and pretty as a baby’s bottom! Next up, we are going to cut open your gourd. Stay tuned…
