Stain and Paint and Top Coat, Oh My!

[Neil D.]

Hi Everyone,

I'm a Cub Scout den leader and I'm working on some wood plaques for my boys when they cross over into Boy Scouts.  I've got red oak that we've used a router on to create a design.  The plan is for the wood to get some stain, but the router design to be painted.  I've done some basic stain/poly topcoat before, but nothing with paint in the mix.  I'm just looking for some advice on if this plan will work:

• Use some water to raise the grain and sand back
• Stain
• 2 coats of the Zinsser spray shellac (mostly to cover the stain and allow me to sand back any paint that gets outside the routed area)
• Paint the routed area
• Light sand so the paint is only where I want it
• Top coat (I'm thinking I'd like to try Arm-r-seal just to get some experience with it)

I'd like the top coat to not be too glossy, so I'd probably only do a single coat or two light coats.  My concern is that I'm mixing oil-based stain with water-based paint and then another oil-base in the Arm-r-seal.  I'll try this all on some scrap before moving on to the real thing.  What do I need to be wary of?

Thanks!

[wdwerker]

If you stain and shellac the plaques before you route them you can mask the area to be routed and paint clean up will be very minimal.

I saw a guy at a festival that routed raw plaques and spray painted the recess, then sanded the face to remove the overspray and shellacked over everything to seal it. Adding stain to the mix would color over the paint. That's why I suggested the method with masking tape.

[Neil D.]

Thanks wdwerker.  Unfortunately I didn't think that far ahead and we already routed the pieces.  I may just leave the wood natural with the paint in the inlay so I can sand off the excess.  Then I can let the top coat add some amber to the wood.

[wdwerker]

If you can find a supplier that carries shellac flakes it comes in different colors/ qualities. The super blonde will have the least yellowing affect, but the lesser grades have more Amber to reddish tints. Paint the recess sand off the overspray then get your ambering from the shellac. 

You have to dissolve shellac flakes and use a paint filter to strain the results. A 1 pound cut is used for seal coats, 3 lb cut is for finishing. Ask questions from the supplier to understand the mixing ratios  etc.