I made this at the request of my wife for a lady who had put in a lot of years at a place she used to work. This is made from two types of cherry. The back piece is brazilian cherry, and front piece is just normal black cherry. After making it I laser engraved it and then did a black color fill.
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That’s nice, did you mask the fill? I’ve been playing around with color fill. One person I saw sprayed shellac on the wood 1st. I tired that and must haven’t gotten a heavy enough coat on it cause the paint still got into the grain.
I have found that using a stencil ink like Masrh, really helps stop the bleeding. I can apply a mask, laser then spay a sealer coat of shellac, then spray the Marsh without any bleed at all on cherry.
I don’t bother with any kind of masking. The topcoat does that for me. It depends on the wood. cherry ( and maple) is a nice, tight-pored, wood, so I put about 3 layers of top coat ( I usually use PolyCrylic…it dries fairly quickly, and is a water based product, but I have used Polyurathane spray as well) and the excess paint easily wipes of with a lint free towel and isopropyl alcohol and I don’t have any troubles with the grain getting filled. Walnut, on the other hand, has pores that are just large enough that if you don’t seal the pores first, you get micro flecks of paint stuck. In that case, I fill the pores first with Aqua Coat. It is a nice, clear pore filler that dries fairly quickly. Two or three coats and the walnut pores are filled, then I do the top coat as I would the cherry.
If I feel the paint will suck into the pores of the area I’ve engraved ( capillary reaction ), I might do another topcoat after engraving to seal that part of the wood. For the most part, I use a thicker acrylic paint, and I don’t have any trouble with bleed.
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So you seal, then laser, then fill and wipe?
Yes, and so far that has worked well for me. Just make sure you are patient enough to let the top coat fully dry…and again, this is for tight grain woods, unless sealed first.
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