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Post by traindriver on Oct 25, 2018 20:29:12 GMT -5
I hate painting a small V-carve sign with a tiny brush - I have no patience for it, and wind up getting a little bit on the surface here and there and it just plain looks sloppy, so I came up with a solution - I first make sure I've got a good smooth surface on the wood, then cover the it with self stick shelf paper and make sure there are no air bubbles, then do the v-carving. Afterward, I spray paint the sign once or twice, then remove the shelf paper. The following pics are an example of doing that. (These projects were for engaged couples, and I got them to sign a note card with a sharpie, take a high resolution picture of it, then email it to me. I imported the picture into v-carve and turned their signatures into vectors. It's a parlor trick, but it impresses people to see their own handwriting carved into the wood.) The following shows some small signs I did for a friend who was taking goats to an auction. The one in upper right is already painted, the rest still have the clear contact paper on them. I do have to clean a little of the paper off the bit, but it's not much. I've also used this trick when painting the surface first. In the picture below, I painted the board red, covered it with contact paper, then carved the "Bulldogs" and, while the sign was still on the machine, spray painted the board black. I waited about a half hour, then cut the "Georgia" layer and removed the shelf paper. No muss, no fuss, and good results. I learned the old fashioned way that for something like this, where you'll use a flat area clearance tool, you need to do the v-carve first. If not, the end mill doing the clearing will tear the shelf paper off areas you want protected. V-carving first produces nice crisp cuts. Hope this helps someone!
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johnb
Full Member
New owner @ March 2019, AR16 Elite, Aspire, 4th Axis & Laser
Posts: 326
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Post by johnb on Oct 26, 2018 10:07:54 GMT -5
That's really nice, traindriver. I've seen it suggested that you can spray a coat of clear finish into the letters before you spray your color coat...it helps stop the bleed into the grain of the wood.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2018 13:05:19 GMT -5
The guys at my cnc club swear by some specific masking material that I can't remember the name of right now. It comes on a roll, self-adheres and is meant for painting purposes and cuts and is removed easily.
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Post by buildswithbrian on Oct 27, 2018 5:43:16 GMT -5
Traindriver, thanks for the tip. I have done the contact paper trick as well, with mixed results. mostly the troubles have been the bit tearing off the contact paper in the small detailed areas I will give a go at routing the v-profile first.
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grg
Junior Member
Posts: 140
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Post by grg on Oct 29, 2018 6:54:01 GMT -5
If I'm after the natural look of the wood without stain, I use Zinser shellac sander sealer on the wood surface before v-carving. It wicks into the wood a good bit and dries in 45 minutes - I use 2 fairly thick coats. Once that has dried, I v-carve and then aggressively stipple in a gel stain with a cheap chip brush that I cut down to make it stiffer. The stain goes everywhere but it absolutely will not adhere to the shellac - you just wipe it up and it only stays in the freshly exposed wood in the v-carved areas. The shellac also gets into the grain of the wood a little and keeps the stain from wicking into the wood grain beyond the border. It leaves a really sharp line and I get a lot of "How long did THAT take you to paint by hand!?" questions. You can then top coat the shellac with anything - I use a spar urethane varnish out of a spray can or something similar giving a uniform coat to everything.
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wbo
New Member
Posts: 1
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Post by wbo on May 21, 2019 21:54:16 GMT -5
Traindriver, thanks for the tip. I have done the contact paper trick as well, with mixed results. mostly the troubles have been the bit tearing off the contact paper in the small detailed areas I will give a go at routing the v-profile first. I use oracal 651 instead of contact paper with great success
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Post by arsystems on May 26, 2019 19:16:43 GMT -5
The guys at my cnc club swear by some specific masking material that I can't remember the name of right now. It comes on a roll, self-adheres and is meant for painting purposes and cuts and is removed easily. Oramask probably
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