Skip the printer. Trace onto the board.
Every burn starts the same way: print the pattern, lay carbon or graphite paper under it, tape it down, and press over every line hoping nothing shifts. It smudges, it wastes a print each time you resize, and if the tape slips you re-register the whole sheet. Grid Maker Pro replaces that ritual on both ends. Plan the composition for free in the browser with all 82 overlays, then use the AR app to anchor your own reference photo to the actual board through the phone and trace it straight onto the wood at whatever size fits. Free grids for the layout. The paid app for getting the drawing onto the board without a single print.
Made for people who burn on wood.
Pyrography rewards a clean, confident outline before the pen ever touches the board — a scorch line cannot be erased. Whoever works from a reference and dreads the print-and-transfer step will get the most out of this.
Portrait and pet burners
Working from a client photo, where the likeness lives in the proportions. Trace your own reference straight onto the board and the features land right before the first burn.
Makers selling on custom sizes
Coasters, plaques, cutting boards, signs — the same design has to fit boards of different dimensions. Resize the reference against each board instead of reprinting the pattern.
Hobbyists tired of carbon smudge
If graphite paper transfer has ruined more than one board with a smeared, half-registered outline, tracing through the screen removes the paper from the process entirely.
Why print-and-carbon is the weak link.
The burn itself is skill, but the outline it follows usually comes from a printout pressed onto the board through graphite or carbon paper. That transfer step is where hours and boards get lost. Here is the honest shape of the traditional route, and what the AR app changes.
Print, tape, carbon, press
It works, and for identical repeats it still earns its place. But for one board at a time it asks a lot.
- Every resize is a reprint. A pattern comes out of the printer at one size; fitting it to a smaller coaster or a larger plaque means scaling in software and printing again — paper and ink each time.
- Carbon and graphite smudge. A dragged hand or a slipped sheet leaves grey over the raw wood, and on light basswood that shadow shows through the finish.
- Re-registering is fiddly. If the tape shifts mid-trace, lining the sheet back up exactly is guesswork, and a misplaced line is a permanent scorch.
Anchor the reference to the board itself
The Grid Maker Pro AR app pins your own reference photo to the real board through the phone camera.
- Look through the screen and the image sits locked on the wood at the size you set. Pinch to resize against the actual board until it fits — no reprint.
- No carbon, no graphite, no tape. Trace the contour straight onto the raw surface with a pencil; nothing smudges the board.
- The reference stays pinned as you move, so there is no re-registering a slipped sheet.
- It runs on-device. Your reference photo never leaves the phone — the same privacy promise as the web tool.
Plan free. Trace onto wood.
A scorched line is permanent, so the order matters: settle the composition small where changes are free, then commit to the board. The free browser tool owns the first half; the AR app owns the second. Three moves.
Compose in the browser
Drop your reference into the free tool and stack composition overlays. Settle the focal point and the major masses while changes cost nothing.
Free web tool · all 82 grids
Anchor it to the board
Open the AR app at the bench, point the phone, and pin the reference to the wood. Pinch to size it to the board — no printing, no carbon, no tape.
AR app · paid
Trace it, then burn
Pencil the contour straight onto the board from what you see through the screen. The proportions are already right, so the bench time goes into the burn, not the setup.
Pencil · then the pen
Free overlays that settle the design.
Before the outline goes onto the wood, the design has to hold together — a burn is unforgiving of a wandering focal point. These overlays live in the free browser tool. Stack them over your reference, resolve the composition, and only then take it to the board. Leon Battista Alberti described squaring a design through a gridded veil in 1435;1 the principle behind moving a picture onto another surface accurately has not changed, only the tools have.
Rule of thirds
The first decision. Seat the focal subject on a third intersection so a burned piece reads at a glance.
→Golden ratio
Phi proportion and the spiral for balancing several elements across a plaque or a round.
→All composition grids
Diagonals, quadrants, and armatures — the full set for laying out a piece before it goes to the board.
Where transfer paper still wins.
AR tracing is the better path for one-offs, custom sizing, and working from your own reference. It is not the answer to every job, and it would be dishonest to say so.
Exact repeat production
Burning the same design onto fifty identical blanks is where a printed master with transfer paper is hard to beat: one cut sheet gives a mechanical, hands-free copy every time, needs no device, and never depends on a battery. Very fine, dense line work can also be easier to lay down all at once from a sheet than to trace live.
One-offs and custom sizes
Commissions, portraits, and boards that all differ in size are where AR tracing earns its keep. One reference photo scales to any board, nothing smudges the raw wood, and you work straight from your own image with no print run. Many burners keep both in the kit and pick by the job.
The AR app does the thing a browser can't.
The web tool plans. The app executes. Built by Sujith Puthran, a working artist of more than fifteen years, the AR app locks your reference photo over the real board and lets you trace at any size on-device. The 82 composition grids stay free forever in the browser — the app is the separate, paid product for getting the drawing onto the wood, and it never paywalls the planning.
Grid Maker Pro AR
Anchor any photo to your board and trace it by hand at the size you set — no printing, no carbon, no tape. Android on Google Play, with iOS planned. No account to start, and your reference photo never leaves the device. The free tier gives you three AR traces of your own photo every month plus all 82 overlays, so you can test it on a real board before paying.
Free tier 3 AR traces / month + 82 overlays · Paid $29.99/yr · $6.99/mo · $79 lifetime
The questions burners ask.
How do I transfer a design onto wood without carbon or graphite paper?
The traditional route is to print the pattern, tape it over the board with carbon or graphite paper underneath, and press over every line — which smudges, shifts if the tape slips, and costs a fresh print each time you resize. The Grid Maker Pro AR app skips all of that: it anchors your reference photo to the board through the phone camera, so when you look through the screen the image sits locked on the wood at the size you set, and you trace the contour straight onto the surface with a pencil. No printing, no carbon, no re-registering. Many burners also plan the layout first in the free browser tool. There is a fuller walkthrough in how to trace onto wood.
Can I resize a pattern for wood burning without reprinting it?
Yes. That is the main thing printing and carbon paper cannot do. A printed pattern is fixed at the size it came out of the printer, so fitting it to a smaller coaster or a larger plaque means scaling in software and printing again. In the AR app you pinch to resize the reference against the actual board until it fits, then trace at that size. One photo covers every board dimension, with no wasted paper or ink.
When is carbon or transfer paper still the better choice?
For exact repeat production. If you are burning the same design onto fifty identical blanks, a printed master with transfer paper gives you a mechanical, hand-free-of-the-phone copy every time and needs no device once it is cut. Transfer paper also wins on very fine, dense line work where you want the whole outline laid down before you start, rather than traced live. AR tracing is the better path for one-offs, custom sizing, and working straight from your own reference photo; transfer paper is the better path for identical, high-volume repeats.
Is the Grid Maker Pro AR app free?
The free web tool with all 82 composition grids is free forever, in any browser, with no signup. The AR app is the separate paid product that locks a reference over your real board and lets you trace it at any size — the thing a browser cannot do. Its free tier gives you three AR traces of your own photo each month plus all 82 overlays. Unlimited AR is $29.99 a year, $6.99 a month, or $79 once for lifetime access. It runs on Android via Google Play, with iOS planned, and starts with no account.
Does my reference photo get uploaded anywhere?
No. Both the free web tool and the AR app work on-device. The browser tool renders the 82 overlays over your image entirely in the browser, and the AR app anchors and traces your reference on the phone itself. Your reference photo never leaves your device — there is no server to upload it to. That is a structural promise, not a policy one.
References
- Alberti, Leon Battista. On Painting (Della Pittura, 1435). Penguin Classics (1991). ISBN 978-0-14-043331-3. The velo — the gridded veil for squaring a design onto another surface accurately.
- Empress of Dirt. “How to Transfer Images to Wood (5 Ways).” empressofdirt.net. A practical survey of image-transfer methods onto wood, including graphite and carbon-paper tracing.
- Hambidge, Jay. The Elements of Dynamic Symmetry. Yale University Press (1920). Dover reprint, ISBN 0-486-21776-0. Root-rectangle composition keyed to the proportions of the surface.
- Bouleau, Charles. The Painter’s Secret Geometry. Harcourt, Brace & World (1963). The canonical study of compositional armatures and proportion in a picture.
Get your reference onto the board.
Compose the piece for free in the browser with all 82 overlays, then anchor your own reference to the board with the AR app and trace at any size. No printing, no carbon, no upload — your reference stays on your device.