So many people who thought they knew what they were doing, and were doing it safely, have been electrocuted or at best, horribly maimed. Both the AWA in America and the AWGB (Association of Woodtruners of Great Britain advise against it, and no woodturning club in the UL permits demonstrations or experimentation with Fractal burning.
The practice uses high-voltage electricity to create lightning-like patterns. At least 33 people have died attempting it since 2016, according to the American Association of Woodturners. A Wisconsin couple was electrocuted attempting a popular but dangerous wood-burning technique, law enforcement officials said.
https://www.woodturner.org/Woodturn...fety-Fractal-Burning-Lichtenburg-Burning.aspx
Couple electrocuted after attempting viral wood-burning art technique
https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture...pting-viral-wood-burning-art-techni-rcna26109
Fractal burning, the controversial process for using high-voltage electricity to create designs in wood, has claimed the life of another man in Pennsylvania. A Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, man was pronounced dead Tuesday morning after an apparent electrocution accident while he burned designs into wood using the fractal design technique.
Sadly, since the AAW Board adopted its policy on fractal burning in 2017, there have been thirty-three reported deaths directly attributed to fractal burning, and an unknown number of injuries and close calls.
https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/...l-accident-kills-43-year-old-pennsylvania-man
A MAN electrocuted himself while attempting a “dangerous” wood-burning technique in his garden workshop, an inquest heard. (June 2017):
Mark Sayer, 43, suffered a fatal 2,000-volt shock while using a high-voltage current to burn lightning-bolt patterns into a piece of wood with equipment he had built himself. He then fell to the floor where his clothing was ignited by an electric heater, causing a fire.
The inquest at Oxford Coroner’s Court on Thursday last week heard that he was likely to have been killed when he made contact with the equipment, which included jump cables, crocodile clips and a microwave transformer.
Mr Sayer was the estate manager for the Badgemore estate and lived in a cottage in the grounds with his wife Jade and their two sons, Hudson, seven, and Mackenzie, four.
https://www.henleystandard.co.uk/ne...le-burning-wood-in-workshop-inquest-told.html
Sadly, not only was his wife widowed and the children left fatherless, they lived in a tied cottage which went with her late husbands job, which they'd have to vacate.
Fractals starts at 7 mins into this video:
As to wearing rubber gloves, they'd need be insulated to 2,000 volts.
If part of your body (or even your clothing), touches the wood, (which will in fact be conductive due to the moisture content (otherwise it wouldn't burn), that would kill you. It isn't just the voltage, but the current: "It's the volts that jolts, but the mills that kills". (milliamps).
At least two of those electrocuted were electricians.
Seems to me that it's just one more way to prove Darwin's theory of the non-survival of the stupidest.
