Not much experience here with wood finishing issues. I need to color fill some V-carved text on a plaque that is flat on the surface.
What process/sequence/materials keeps mistakes from my old shaky hands or blotches under control? I’ve thought about sealing the surface first then adding the color but, again, how to remedy the goofs.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Clark in Central Texas
get a random orbit sander 
and then use poly spray to spray the whole work after the cut (this reduces color bleeding)…
and then paint the letters… but do not worry too much if you go outside the letter because…
at the end you use your orbital sander to sand the whole top area, and with that, any paint that is over the edge will sand away cleanly.
oh but only do the sanding after the paint has really dried well. wet paint and sanding pads do not mix well.
Make sure your vcarvings are deep enough. Very fine carving can be sanded off or made unusable.
there’s a trick to that
after you zero your bit, go into the jogging screen in CM, in the zero section, and add 0.3 mm to the Z position
that way you carve 0.3mm deeper than the actual surface, which then lets you sand off 0.3mm for free to get to the normal detail
I did one recently where I used a start depth, painted the whole thing then surfaced the entire piece
ohhhh skip the sanding, just use the cnc… I’ll need to try this one
Add an alternative to sanding (maybe on a board you already finished), I use oramask. Let the finish cure, mask, carve, slop on paint, remove mask.
Spray painting Vcarve text is almost impossible. Don’t even try, because you will ultimately build up too much paint somewhere. That will, at the very least, mask your carved text details. Perhaps an airbrush would work with multiple light layers.
Brush painting is the better way to paint-fill the text. Also, do a really good job of cleaning out the fuzzies in and around your text. Paint will just highlight any bumps inside the text.
I will duplicate every Vcarve toolpath. The first one is called “CLEAR”. The second one adds 0.002" or 0.003" to the start depth and is called “FINISH”. (You can add the depth by adjusting your Z also.) The extra time spent on the machine will be a very good trade-off in the finishing time.
Of course, only after sealing everything as others have suggested.
Thanks to all of you ( and others who might in the future) for the help. So many techniques to try… so little time. Actually, now retired so plenty of time.
I do intend to try each of the methods offered up and on different woods to learn what does the best job on each species of wood.
Safety and god health to all,
Clark
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