All, I am asking only US Marines to reply to this post. I am making a cabinet to put my late father-in-laws military memorabilia in. The cabinet is 38" x 38" and is 36" x 36" inside. It will have a cope and stick door on the front with extended tenons.
My question is on the outside right and left side I am going to vcarve the Marine Corp Logo and the work MARINES on both sides.
So should I paint the carving or fill it with epoxy?
Here is a close up of the Marine Corp emblem carved in Walnut as a test. I wanted to make sure that the logo was a good carve before carving it on the actual sides. It was an advanced vcarve with a 1/32" bit and a 20 degree vee bit.
The swords are from his dress blue uniform from the Marine Corp Association. The WWII Japanese NCO sword was taken from a North Korean he killed and brought it home.
Jess was in the occupation of Okinawa at the end of WWII. He was in the reserves and got called up to go to Korea. They landed his fellow Marines and put them in the Chosin Resivior a dry lake bed. They were landed without winter clothing and it started snowing and got very cold. The Chinese and North Koreans surrounded the Marines and almost killed them all. Jess survived and received two Purple Hearts.
I have started the carve in the two side pieces of the cabinet. Each one takes about 4 hours. I will likely get one done tonight and the other one tomorrow.
In the mean time I mixed up some MAS Table Top Pro epoxy. 2 Fluid ounces and put 4 drops of Transtint Red dye in. The color looks good but once I sand off the overfill sometimes red looks black or dark. Tomorrow that will be dry and I will sand off the excess and see how it looks.
Still waiting to see what suggestions I get on paint vs epoxy. I just could not do a half and half on the trial Marine Corp Logo. So I just filled the whole thing and will see tomorrow,
I gotta say that logo looks really good as is, without paint or epoxy.
I wonder how just clear epoxy would look?
I’ve never seen an EGA colored all red. Interested to see how it turns out.
I might consider gold or black.?? I do like how clean & professional epoxy looks over paint.
I did a Chris Craft boat logo with red epoxy on mahogany and the red came out dark.
I wonder if mixing a little white tint, or painting the letters white before pouring the red would make the red brighter??
I have good news and bad news. Last night I started the carve on one of the sides. The MARINES went well. The EGA was up at the back of my SO3 and I could not see it very well. Something went wrong and steps were lost. I was not at the limit and was about 3" from the back limit of the SO3 XXL. So not sure what went wrong.
So there are several ways to fix this like a plug of walnut and try again but I decided to go another way and bought two Marine Corp 3.5" round logos off Amazon today. I will adhere them to the side of the cabinet.
I will still carve the MARINES down the other side. Still deciding to paint that carve or epoxy. Last night while carving the first side I took my test and added MAS Table Top Pro Epoxy. I mixed up 2 fluid ozs and added 4 drops of Transtint dye.
Here is the raw epoxy after sanding off the over fill.
So 4 drops per 2 oz is too much. I will try 2 drops per 2 oz. The CC Pro volume estimation for the MARINES only is confusing. Here is a screen shot. I took the extra % down to 0 just see the estimation.
Last night I mixed up 2 oz of epoxy for just the EGA and had some left over but this says I need about .9 oz. Do you think they mean .9oz for each letter?
Made more progress. Got both sides of the “Marines” carved and a single coat of red paint. I put Zinsser Universal Sanding Sealer (Dewaxed Shellac) on before painting. Still have not decided on epoxy or just the paint. Also got my Marine Corp Logos from Amazon. They have an adhesive back so after finishing I will attach the metal logos. I will put another coat of acrylic red paint on tonight before I go to bed and see what it looks like in the morning.
Sanded off t he excess paint today. I think I will just leave them as is and finish them with wipe on poly along with the rest of the cabinet. More and more progress.
I like what you have made with the metal emblems have you though about creating a locker for them to lay even in the wood? Also I would not trust the adhesive only to hold them on. maybe a flood coat of clear epoxy’s they hold their shine. Hey what do I know I would have been melting crayons lol. Honestly everything you have done looks amazing!
I’d recommend Epoxy and try this great product called Unicorn Spit. It’s water based and has a lot of vibrant colors (plus a little goes a long way). You could really make the Epoxy pop and make the EGA be brilliant.
