Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi. I am making a les Paul guitar cake and am struggling to be able to do the wood effect that is required.
Any help would be appreciated. I tried to attach a picture but wasn’t able to. Thanks!

Hi Loganwendy

Please could you say which wood effect is required in the tutorial. If its the little brown button type things, they are made using Renshaws teddy bear brown sugarpaste. I’ve had a look throught he tutorial and can’t see where else there is wood effect. Paul covered the board in marbled fabric effect.

Hi. Thanks for replying. It’s the actual main part of the guitar that’s wood. Kind of darker on outside edge then lines in the middle. I have a picture but can’t upload it. http://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showthread.php?196154-Guitar-Trader-Les-Paul It’s like this one if you are able to open the link.

Hi. Thanks for replying. It’s the actual main part of the guitar that’s wood. Kind of darker on outside edge then lines in the middle. I have a picture but can’t upload it. http://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showthread.php?196154-Guitar-Trader-Les-Paul It’s like this one if you are able to open the link.

Hello Blossom

I did a similar wood effect on a ukalaili cake by painting the cake a darker shade of colour. I started with teddy bear brown sugarpaste and painted it brown using vodka and gel paste colour. Using a flat, fairly broad paint brush and vodka, I removed the darker shade by running the brush in lines to rmove the excess dark colour which revealed the lighter shade beneath. It’s a case of perseverance until the desired effect is achieved. Once the vodka dried off I sprayed the cake with PME clear glaze to give a shiny wood grain effect. The same thing can be done with a small wedge of sponge. You need to use some light and some deeper strokes when removing the excess colour to give depth to the pattern.
You could also use Paul’s technique which is to give a representation of the pattern rather than a realistic effect.
Hope this helps.

Thank you. This sounds like a plan and will test it tonight!

Good luck with the ‘plan’ hope it works for you as well as it did for me. If you have any isopropanol alcoho at hand, use it instead of vodka because it dries quicker, if you don’t have any use the vodka as I did.

Thank you made it with love, the cake turned out perfect and better than I could have hoped for. Thanks for the great advice. happy new year!

Hi Blossom

A very Happy New Year to you too! I’m thrilled that your cake turned out so well and thank you so much for your feed back. xx