Applying Color Fill to Wood Plaques

[Dee Gallo]

Here is an example of bamboo, finished with clear poly before engraving. Color fill in these small areas is done with a thing called a "brush-pik", which looks like a tiny Q-tip, available in hobby shops for model painting. Blending is done by outlining dark colors first, then adding lighter colors like yellow or white in the center areas. Using a clean brush-pik, you softly blend them together. These items are about 1 1/2" x 1/2".

edit: I forgot to mention that I wipe the excess paint off using De-Solve-it, a waterless solvent which removes the oil based paint I use very easily. Goo-Gone would work as well.

[Bill George]

Dee I did some bamboo around Christmas time and found it hard to engrave, most trouble of any wood I have done. Yours looks wonderful.

[Dee Gallo]

Bill, I just use 40 speed/100 power/400dpi on my 35w. No problems at all. But my favorite wood to engrave is cherry, followed by walnut.

BTW, here is a pic of the brushpiks I use.

[john swank]

Has anybody tried Minwax Woodfiller?

[Kit Dumph]

Thank you for the replies guys. Has anyone used acrylic paint out of the rattle can to paint with onto finished wood that is masked? I have a full 24x18" piece of artwork with lots of detail that I think brushing on by hand will take way to long.My current though is I'm going to spray a coat of lacer over the masked engraving first and then add the paint.

[Mike Null]

I use Krylon often. Today though I'll be using an air brush with acrylic paint to fill 60 brief case size plywood boxes. They have a finish on them.

If you have a lot of detail it might be better to use an air brush rather than a rattle can.

[Liesl Dexheimer]

Nicely done Julian!

Here's my attempt at color filling a plaque for a customer of mine. I used a relatively inexpensive acrylic paint set and first applied a mask, engraved & then color filled.

Red_Alder_Plaque.jpg

[Julian Ashcroft]

What type of wood is that? What type of varnish stain did you use?

That plaque was actually a cheap hardwood breadboard I got off eBay. It had a bit of filer in it. Can't remember the name of the varnish stain I used, but it was some stuff off the shelf at the local DIY store. The dark stain is Rustins. Total material cost including the plaque was under £4.00.