How a Kirkwood man uses electricity to create patterns in wood art

Jun 03, 2024

Steve Burn isn’t typically the type to try things he sees on YouTube.

“I’m not normally that adventurous,” says Burn, of Kirkwood.

Then he watched videos of people pumping 6,000 volts of electricity through wood. And that? That he just couldn’t resist.

“Pulling the trigger on it for the first time was a little ‘ehhhh,’” Burn says through gritted teeth. After researching what’s required to create fractal burning patterns in wood, Burn set everything up, stood on the other side of the room, flipped the switch and held his breath.

“Honestly? It was a little underwhelming,” he says. “I was expecting some kind of big to-do. No, I went over and looked and it was burning. It was like lightning. But real slow lightning.”

Sure enough, just as Burn had hoped, he ended up with tree-branchlike patterns often called Lichtenberg figures.

Lightning strike survivors end up with those on their skin. The figures get their name from German physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg who, in the 1770s, made a large electrostatic generator to send high voltage through various materials, according to a 2012 issue of the American Physical Society’s “This Month in Physics History.” Lichtenberg sprinkled powdered substances on the treelike patterns and pressed paper down to record them.

“Those provided the basis for to the invention of the Xerox machine, thanks to Chester Carlson’s kitchen experiments in his Queens apartment in the 1930s,” per the American Physical Society piece.

Burn creates the patterns on charcuterie boards, wood crosses and table display boards that can be wiped down and hung as wall art when not in use.

Steve Burn works on fractal burning in his garage

With the doors to his two-car garage at his Kirkwood home wide home open, Burn readies a round piece wood by brushing it with an electrolyte solution from a glass canning jar. He jabs into the wood two small rods hooked to his electricity source.

Burn steps back — not too far back, now that he’s more comfortable — and kicks on the juice. Dark branches start their spread amid tiny sparks that look like Fourth of July sparklers when they’re just about down to their ends. It smells a bit like those, too, with a hint of campfire thrown in. There is the possibility of chlorine gas emission, Burn says. So a floor fan blows air out of the garage.

The slower the burn pattern moves, the deeper the grooves. When the wood dries, the pattern stops spreading. He brushes on more solution, hooks the whole thing back up and gives it another jolt.

“You don’t have control over it, but you can kind of guide it,” Burn says.

Burn doesn’t describe his electrical source in detail. He’s adamant that trying this process is not something others should do. It’s been banned by some woodworking societies, he says, adding that people have died trying to create Lichtenburg figures.

“Burning the house down is really the least of the concerns,” he says about potential mistakes. “It comes across your heart and stops it, which I guess is why my wife didn’t want me to do it.”

Burn does have some electrical experience. These days he works as a site manager at a community landfill. But years ago he was a subcontractor for PECO, working with heavy underground electrical design.

“Back then I was dealing with 35,000 volts. That stuff was like, ‘If I touch it I’m dead— instantly dead,’” he says. “This stuff? I’m thinking this is going to hurt that whole time that I die. Not looking forward to that.”

Burn is the type to inject some levity into even serious situations. He’s got one of the best senses of humor around, says Andrew Morgan, who with his wife owns The Daily Grind in Quarryville. Their coffee shop is selling Burn’s creations in its retail section.

“He’s a great friend of ours,” Morgan says. “We like to support local small businesses, and we thought it was something new that we needed to highlight. So far it’s had a great receiving.”

Things have fallen in place quickly. What was just supposed to be a hobby turned to a fledgling business within a matter of months. Having other friends who run a nearby sign business has helped on the material supply front.

“I work full time. We have four kids. I go to school at night. So why not add a business onto it?” Burn says.

The family name was a natural for the business moniker. Burn Wood Customs will be set up on April 3 at the Local Makers Market at the Shops at Rockvale.

Kim Burn is making sure that it’s only her husband who actually deals with the electricity and that their kids (Abigail, 20, Jaden, 14, Reagan, 12, and Deacon, 10) are involved with the business in other ways if they choose. That may mean brushing ash out of the grooves, adding color or working with the epoxy used to encase some creations. Burn and crew sometimes fill in the grooves with a bright blue epoxy reminiscent of a river. Eventually Burn would like to make river tables.

Burn Wood Customs is certainly not the only company involved in Lichtenberg-related sales. Etsy offers several examples of vendors selling electrically shocked items from gun stocks to guitars.

The impact of electricity does have its appeal, Burn says.

“We have friends — a young couple who just bought their first house — who said, ‘Hey, do you think you can burn the cabinets? If we take them down can with bring them over so you can burn them?’ ” he says.

Another friend, who has a cherry wood table made by a great grandfather, asked if Burn would add some Lichtenberg patterns to that. “I mean, I appreciate it,” Burn says. “But what if I ruin it?”

Granted, Burn more than understands why people can't seem to resist the idea.

He says he’s completely mesmerized by electrical patterns —whether on charcuterie boards or in the sky.

“If it’s storming, we’re outside watching,” he says.

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