Almost any unfinished wood can be burned on, although some might be toxic and therefore you have to be a little careful. If you find some "natural" wood that is on the ground, it might be a good wood to try a burning on. Even if it has some disguised features, those anomalies can be used in the burnings. Small knots can become "eyes." Irregular grain can be water, clouds, land, mountains, etc. Use your imagination when looking at woods with "character" and you might find it is just the spark you need for that special work.

When burning leather the tip gets dirty. Just turn the leather over and use the back, ruff side, to clean it.

Remember when burning outside that breezes can actually cool the burning tip a bit. Wind a lot more so.

If you use the fixed temperature burners, like the Walnut Hollow, a dampened sponge can be used to occasionally wipe the tip clean as you are working.

Try cutting a piece of wood out for your foreground and then glue it to the main piece of wood you are using. Then you can burn the grass, sand, trees, etc. on it and it will tend to give a 3d effect.

Most drug and feed stores will sell hypodermic needles for about 20 cents and they make excellent sharp tips for detailed scratching and removal of small burned areas..like highlights in pupils for instance. Then if you need a fine glue applicator, it can also be used for that purpose. I suspect they might also be great for the reverse pyrography, where the wood is blackened and then the image is scratched in. Also those lancets used by diabetics work well also.

If you have ever ruined a burn beyond being able to recover, just blacken it with a butane torch and try some negative pyrography. Negative pyrography is where you blacken a piece of wood then create the image by scratching the image by removing the burned part and expose the wood.

If cutting slices of a round wood or branch, cut on a
diagonal and it will make a nice looking oval to burn on.