In this blog I will be doing a product review of the Customizer Engraver CP-V3 by Culiau.  I will share with you some different applications I thought of for using the engraver.  The applications fall into two general categories: practical and decorative.   The practical applications are situations that I experience on a semi-regular basis.  Decorative applications, on the other hand, are unique projects that I probably wouldn’t do very often.  I will share a number of applications from both categories with you in this blog. 

Note that I won’t be covering the decorative projects in great detail.  After all, this is a product review not a how to blog.   If you would like more information about a particular project, then leave a comment and let me know.  If there is enough interest, I will make a tutorial about it.

I have to admit that when Culiau contacted me about their engraver, I was hesitant because I didn’t see how it would be useful in pyrography.  I’ve turned down product offers because they weren’t relevant to pyrography. For several days I pondered this dilemma of relevancy.  During that time, I wrote down ideas on how the engraver could be used in pyrography.  I was surprised by the number of ideas I came up with.  It was at that point where I decided it would be worthwhile to test out the engraver.

I do have a video version of this review.  While I do my best to verbally explain things, sometimes seeing it is easy to understand.

UNBOXING

Here’s the box I received.  It doesn’t look identical to the one on their website, but it could be that they have different styles based on the country the engraver is being shipped to.

The box was smaller than I was expecting.  It measured 4 ¼” wide x 7 ½” tall x 7/8” deep (10.8 x 19.1 x 2.2 cm).  The shipping packaging fit in my mailbox.

Lifting the lid reveals an assortment of items.

Like the user manual.  It contains basic instructions for the Customizer.

Also included are 30 diamond drill bits.  All of them are shaped differently, but some are pretty similar in style.

Here’s a close up of the diamond bits.

Next is the rechargeable Customizer.  It runs on a lithium battery.

There is a black cap for the Customizer, and a USB charging cable.

Also included is a little plastic Ziploc bag that contains several items.

One item is the engraving bit that is carefully wrapped in paper.

The baggy also contains the hex key.

And two Allen grub screws. 

I do like that they give you a spare screw. 

These things are small, and I think they’d be easy to lose.

SIZE

With cap on, the Customizer weighs 2 ounces (56.7 g), so it’s very lightweight.     Without the cap the engraver weighs 1.9 ounces (53.9 g).

The Customizer is 5 3/4 inches (14.6 cm) long with the cap on.

The engraver is 4 3/4 inches (12.1 cm) long to the end of the collet.  The collet is where the bits are inserted.

I had difficulty measuring the circumference with my measuring tape.  So I wrapped a piece of paper around the engraver, and marked the spot where it touched.

The Customizer has a circumference of 2 1/8 inches (5.4 cm).

The drill bits are not all the exact same length, but the are very close to 1 3/4 inches (4.4 cm).

Todd used some fancy measuring device to check the diameter of the bits.  I don’t have a clue what this thing is called, so I’m calling it the fancy measuring device.   

According to the fancy measuring device, the bits are 3/32 inches in diameter (0.24 cm / 2.4mm).

Most standard sized Dremel bits are 1/8 inches in diameter, so they are too big for the Customizer.

The USB cable measures 12 ½ inches (31.8 cm) long.

EQUIPPING

Grab the bit you want and insert it into the collet opening. 

Push the bit down as far as it will go.  

Be aware that the first couple of times inserting and/or removing bits might require some force.  After that things get easier. 

Not all of the bits are the exact same size, so there are still a few that require more effort to insert and remove than others. 

Once the bit is in place, then secure it to the Customizer with a Allen grub screw.  This thing is tiny.  I found it was easier to attach it to the hex key and use that to place it into the threaded insert.

Place your finger on the collet to keep it from spinning, and tighten the screw until it is snug.

 

I’ve found that you do not need to completely remove the Allen grub screw to exchange bits.  

Instead, just loosen the screw enough to be able to remove the bit, but not enough to remove the screw from the collet.

Insert the bit you want.

Tighten up the screw and you’re ready to go.  

I was thrilled when I discovered I didn’t have to completely remove the Allen grub screw!  The reason is that finding said screw after it dropped onto the floor is not fun!   When I said I thought the screws would be easy to lose, I wasn’t expecting it to happen so soon!   Fortunately Todd found it using a large magnet he has.  

NOISE

In the video version of this product review I recorded the sound levels of the engraver.  It’s not a pleasant sound.  

I will mention here that it can be rather loud depending on what you are doing and the setting you have it on.  It often reminds me of a dentist drill.  

Because the sound bothers me, I wear ear muffs when I use the engraver.

POWER & BATTERY

Here’s the spec page from the user manual.  I’ve got the RPM section circled.

When you first power on the engraver by pressing the orange button, it begins at level 3.  

The green arrow is pointing to the LED indicator that shows what level the engraver is running at.

The yellow arrow is pointing to the charge on the battery. 

The orange button not only powers the unit on and off, but it is used to cycle through the 3 different power levels.

Power level 1 is the lowest setting. 

 

I kept track of every time I used the Customizer.  I did this until the battery ran out of charge.

In fact, I did this a couple of times. 

As you can see, the number of minutes the battery lasted varies. 

I’m sure this has to do with what the Customizer is being used for.

Of course, after the battery is drained, it needs to be recharged.  The user manual states that the charger should not exceed 5v 2A.  

The first time I hooked it up to my computer’s USB 3 port, and timed how long it took to charge.  Yes, I know how to have an exciting time.  😊

During another charging time, I used a RavPower portable charger.  I also tested out a USB 2 port on an older computer. 

All of the power sources I tried produced 5v, but the amperage was different.  USB 2 is 0.5a, USB 3 is 0.9a, and the RavPower was 2.1a.   In theory, the higher the amperage, the quicker the Customizer should charge.

Surprisingly, the amperage to make a difference in the charge time.  All three tests took very similar amounts of time to charge and that was almost 3 hours!

I do want to mention that once the battery display is showing 1 bar of charge, you have mere minutes of charge left. 

Once it gets to that point quit using it and start charging it.

DRILL vs ENGRAVER

The engraver can quickly remove all color from burn strokes.  This can be helpful for creating distant stars or small moons.

Another example is the line engraving of a rose.

The diamond drill bits act more like sand paper.   They can be used to slowly remove a little color.

This photo shows the before and after.   I think both types of bits could be used to remove a little or a lot of color, but how long it takes varies.

In this composite photo I’m using a drill bit on the left and the engraver on the right. 

After a couple of passes, the engraver completely removed the color from the board.  The diamond drill bit just lightened the area.

Here’s how the test area looked once I was done.   The upper section was done with one of the drill bits, and the lower with the engraver.

HAND PRESSURE

Hand pressure can impact how the Customizer works.  This photo shows a composite photo of a drill and the engraver creating lines using a light hand pressure.   The drill bit is on the right.

Now I’m using a heavy hand pressure.  Again, the drill bit is on the right.

The light hand pressure produced much smaller lines.  The heavy hand pressure created wider lines.

When I angle the board, you can that lines created with heavy hand pressure are also very deep.

CLEANING

The tips can get dirty pretty quickly; especially if you’re using them on dark backgrounds.

I found that rubbing the tips on an ink pen eraser cleans them up.  Ink pen erasers are also called sand erasers.

Here’s the before and after photo. 

The engraver not only gets dirty, but the slots get filled with wood debris.

Again, I just rub it over the ink pen eraser.

I cut the end of the eraser off to create a rougher surface.  I find that sometimes it helps to clean the slots by rubbing the bit on this rougher surface.

Here’s the before and after comparison photo.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

1 – Signing on a dark background

I begin by signing my name with a white colored pencil.

Then I use the engraving tip and carefully follow along the pencil lines.

The signature can be a light as you want.  I removed a little bit of color, so ended up with a signature in the tan hue range.

2 – Highlights

Next is adding small highlights.  An eye is an excellent example.

It’s really quick and easy to add highlights to the dark pupil.

Here’s how it looks.  By the way, this artwork was done on paper.  It is possible to use the Customizer on paper, but make sure to use a very light hand pressure!

This image of raindrops shows 3 that have highlights on them.  Those highlights were done by avoidance.  That simply means that I avoided burning over the highlight.

I can quickly add pin point highlights to the remaining raindrops.

Here’s how it looked after I was done.  I actually like the highlights done with the customizer (top 3) better than the ones created via avoidance.

 

In fact, you can quickly and easily make highlights of any shape or size with the Customizer.

This took much less time to do that scratching the highlights into existence with the tip of a sharp knife.

3 – Distant stars

It’s very easy to create distant stars and small planets on a dark background.

Here’s how my simple artwork looks.   I do think it would be possible to create a moonlit scene.  Something like snow covered branches on a moonlit night.

4 – White whiskers

I’m using the Customizer to carve white whiskers on my jaguar artwork.

Here’s how the whiskers looked after I was done.  Again, this was much quicker and faster to do than scraping them into existence.

I will mention that I used a smaller engraver than what came with the Customizer.  This image shows two engravers.  The one on the left circled in red is what comes with the Customizer.  The one on the right came from Todd’s Dremel.  He had a couple of bits that were small enough to fit in the Customizer, so he gave them to me.

I was curious how similar a scraped whisker looked compared to an engraved whisker.   I drew whisker shapes with a white color pencil.   On the left I’m using the tip of a sharp knife.  On the right the engraver.

I think both methods produced similar results.

5 – Clouds

I drew some cloud shapes into the sky with a pencil.  Now I’m using one of the diamond drill bits to remove some color and create the clouds.

Quite truthfully, I should have practiced first because my clouds didn’t turn out.  

In fact, it’s hard to see my clouds.   

I think the idea is plausible, but my method needs improvement.

6 – Remove dark grain line

This photo is showing a dark line in my artwork.  It stands out too much.

I’m using one of the diamond drill bits with a fine point to slowly and gently remove color from the line.

I found it easier to get at the line from a different angle.

Here’s how it looked after I was done.  It looks much better.  The line was very distracting to me.

7 – Fixing mistakes

The arrow is pointing to a spot where I burned, but didn’t want it there.  It’s an oops.

I’m using the engraving bit to remove the spot.

I’m also thinning out some of the shadow start lines that were too thick.

 

This worked well.

The arrow is pointing to a spot where the pen tip went past the edge of the object.  This happened because I didn’t keep the pen tip in optimal position.

I’m using a diamond drill bit to slowly remove some color.

 

 

In retrospect, given how dark the burn mark was, I should have used the engraver.

Here’s how it looked after I was done.  You can see that I created a bit of a depression in the area.

The yellow arrow is pointing to another oops where I burned past the edge of the object.   The upper blue arrow is pointing to overburn.  Overburn happens when you’re pen tip is too hot, and it chars the wood adjacent to where you are burning.

I hadn’t learned my lesson yet, so I’m using a drill bit to try and remove the dark line.

While the drill bit didn’t remove the dark line, it worked wonderfully on the overburn.

I switched to the engraver and went over the dark line.

That removed the majority of the color.

METAL STENCIL

I want to see if I can use the Customizer like a router with this brass stencil. 

I placed coins under the stencil to elevate it above the wood.  I didn’t want to damage my stencil.  Both the coins and stencil were secured with tape.

Then I equipped the engraver and started carving the design by following along the contours of the stencil.

I did my best to try and keep the engraver perpendicular to the board.  I also tried to keep my hand pressure constant.  I didn’t do well with either one.  Both were a lot harder to do than I was expecting.

Here’s how it looked after I was done.  Not horrible, but not awesome.

It’s difficult to see the engraving, so I’m rubbing a pencil over the area.

As I blend the pencil lines with a blending stump, the color smooths out and darkens up.  This makes it easier to see the design.

Here’s how it looks now.  It’s easier to see the carving and all of its imperfections.   On the flip side, for a spur of the moment idea it turned out much better than expected.

The great thing, is that the pencil erases easily from the board.

There is a slight staining of the board from the pencil, but not enough to be noticeable. 

Here’s how my stencil looks.  It has a couple of scratch marks and scuffing that it didn’t have before.   Glad I raised it up from the surface of the wood. 

LEATHER

I’ve stained a square on this piece of leather.

Then I taped a stencil onto the leather, and I’m going to use a fine point marker to ink in the design.

The marker has a .1 nib tip, so it can get into the really small design elements of the stencil.

Before removing the stencil, always lift it a little ways and check for missing areas.

I repeated the process on the unstained leather below.  I really should have done this to the right of the stained leather.  It would have made the pictures fit on the screen better. 

After the designs were inked in, then I used the engraver to carve the designs into the leather.

It’s super easy to see where I’ve engraved on the stained leather.  The unstained leather doesn’t have as much contrast, but there is enough to see it.

Here’s how it looked after I was done engraving the designs.

I applied stain to the lower design.

Even before the stain had dried, I could see that the engraving was darker than the adjacent leather.

11i.  Here’s how the leather looked after the stain dried.   I really like the high contrast on the upper design, but that’s going to change real soon.

Now I’m going to apply Resolene sealant to the leather.    

Both engravings got a little darker. 

Here’s how the leather looked after the Resolene dried.  Now I like the lower engraving better because it has more contrast.

COLORFUL DESIGN

I’ve drawn a design on the board using a stencil.

Now I’m using the engraving to deeply carve out the designs.  My goal with this experiment is to see if the deep engraving will prevent color from bleeding along grain lines.

I did find it helpful to carve around the edges of a larger design element.

 

 

And then carve out the center of the element.

Next, I wood burned over the design.  I’m burning at a higher heat using the flat of the shader.

Once I was done, I had a few spots of overburn.  An arrow is pointing to one.   I just used the Customizer on the spots to remove the color.

I’m using watercolors to paint in the design elements.  I first fill an element with water, and the dab watercolor into it.  This worked pretty well.

Unfortunately, the color did bleed.  A yellow arrow is pointing to one of the spots.

On the other design I used alcohol inks.  They are more intense in color, but they also bleed more.   Maybe it’s really a matter of the bleeding is more noticeable.  Not sure.

Here’s how the designs looked after they dried.  The one on the left in with the green frame was done with alcohol inks.  The right one was colored with watercolors.

The arrow is pointing to a spot where the alcohol ink bleed into the adjacent design.

FANCY BORDER

I’m using a stamp to put a fancy border along the edge of the board.

I used very little ink, and kept the color on the lighter side. 

While it might be hard to see, I put pencil marks on the board indicating the location of the halfway.  I used the pencil marks to align the center of the stamp with.

After all of the borders were stamped, I used the engraving tool to carve out the stamped image.  

After I had I engraved two sides of the board, I discovered that it works better to engrave all of one design element before starting doing another one.

This helps ensure the design elements look very similar.

There was some residual ink on the board.   To remove it I rubbed over the ink with my Vanish eraser.  That removed most of it.     I did have one stubborn ink mark, so that got treated with an ink pen eraser.

Here’s how the before and after image.

Next, I burned over the design using the flat of a large shader.

I made the color darker along the outer edge, and let it get slightly lighter the further from the edge I got. 

Here’s how the board looks now.  

I do think this application has a lot of potential.  There are so many stamps out there that you can create numerous different looks.   As for the center, burn in a scene.  Paint a scene.  Use it as a picture frame and glue or decoupage an image in the center.  So many possibilities!

I chose to burn a simple flower design onto the board.

Here’s the artwork after I was done.

SMOKE

I burned a section of the board to a very dark color.

Next, I used a colored pencil to draw a wisp of smoke.

Afterwards I equipped a diamond drill bit and slowly removed color.

 

 

 

I worked on the brighter areas first because they helped give the smoke shape faster.  Then I worked on the more translucent sections of the smoke.

Here’s how it looked once I was done. 

This is the reference photo I used.  I found it on Pixaby.  Here’s a link to the photo:  https://pixabay.com/photos/candle-smoke-flame-fire-light-5883060/

 

WHITE ROSE

I started out with 3 dark boards.  Each board was darkened up a different way: pyrography, torch, and paint.

Then I applied a rose pattern to each board. 

The back each pattern has a light coating of spray on adhesive.

Next, I used the engraver and carved along the pattern lines.    The nice thing is that it’s pretty easy to see where you’ve carved.  The bad thing is that it isn’t easy to tell is whether or not you’re carving deep enough to get through the paper.   The other bad thing is that this technique produces a lot of dust compared to carving on wood.

I remove the pattern and here’s how one of the boards looked.  Some of my lines aren’t very bright and a couple of missing.

I fixed the problem lines before continuing on.

 

Now I’m using a diamond drill bit to gently remove some color from each petal to give the rose shape.

Here’s how the boards looked before and after.   

I didn’t finish the middle board because it was defective.  Pieces of the plywood kept falling off.

MISCELLANEOUS

I mentioned before that Todd gave me some bits from his Dremel that fit the Customizer.   Here’s a photo of the assorted bits he gave me.

I’m holding an empty pen tip tube.  This is one from a replaceable pen tip I ordered from Colwood. 

All of the extra bits fit into the tube.

 

 

 

 

 

This plastic baggy contains the spare Allen grub screw.  I keep it in the baggy so I don’t lose it.

The rolled up baggy fits into the tube.

And sodoes the hex key.

This keeps everything together.  Makes it easy to find, store, and, in theory, not lose.

PROS vs CONS

PROS

• It’s very lightweight
• Easy to use
• Portable
• Can be very precise
• Has numerous practical and decorative uses
• Can create gradient highlights
• Can quickly remove really dark burn marks

CONS

• Has a long charge time (3 hours)
• It’s noisy. I wear earmuffs when using it.
• It can quickly create deep gouges into the wood
• Creates a fair amount of dust
• A bit expensive
• I would prefer more engravers and fewer diamond drill bits

SHOULD YOU BUY ONE?

This is always the moment of truth, but it is also a difficult question to answer.  I like the Customizer.  I feel like there are a number of useful applications where I would use it.  My favorite application is creating white whiskers!  

The decorative applications I thought of are things I know I wouldn’t do very often, so they don’t appeal to me as near much as the practical applications do.  Some of you will have a completely opposite view, and that’s what makes the world an interesting place. 

The Customizer costs almost $70 USD (as of February 2023), and that’s quite a bit of money for an accessory that might only be used occasionally.    I can’t tell you if it is worthwhile for you to purchase.  Instead, you will have to decide for yourself if the expense is worth it.

DISCOUNT CODE

Culiau gave me a discount code of PyroBrenda that will give you 10% off of their products.   Here’s a link to their website:  https://culiau.com

The discount code is a nice gesture on Culiau’s part, but please don’t view this as a plea to for you to buy an engraver.  I am not affiliated with Culiau.

I do not receive compensation of any sort if you decide to buy something from them.   

Instead, I am simply passing on information to you that you may or may not be interested in.   If you prefer to purchase the engraver on Amazon, here’s an affiliate link:  https://amzn.to/45GUEOY

IN CONCLUSION

That is it for this blog.  My first thoughts about the Customizer were wrong.  I initially thought wouldn’t be very useful in pyrography, but it turns out that there are a number of ways it can be useful.  I’m sure there are many other ways of using the Customizer that I haven’t thought of.   

On the flip side, the Customizer is not something I’d use every day.  There are certain applications where it becomes an excellent addition to pyrography.  An example is creating white whiskers.  This is not something I do daily or even weekly.  I will certainly keep the Customizer in my studio and within easy reach.

Brenda

Feb 28, 2023

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