suggestions on painting scrabble letter for wall art

[Tim M Barnes]

I am working on a wall art project for my wife for Christmas, using 1 ft square walnut plywood tiles with scrabble-type letters / numbers on them. I bounced around between mdf + veneer vs solid wood vs plywood - I chose plywood because I like the exposed edge look and for me it seemed the project would be simpler.

I am having trouble coming up with a good approach for the finishing the inside of the letters/numbers. Here are a couple pictures of a test piece with the letter F / number 4. Please ignore the 4 corner holes as they were just for clamping.

I was hoping I would like the natural look (given that I like the exposed plywood edges), but I just don't like it. Some options I came up with:

1) use black adhesive / flocking - might seem like a lot of work for something that won't be touched, but I think the contrast would look great and some of the letters will be along a staircase where people will see them up close.

2) wood filler on any voids, then prime/paint the grooves - any suggestions on type of paint?

3) something else? colored epoxy, or something else that would be "thick enough"?

Thanks!
Tim

247556247557

[Steve Kohn]

I think I'd try your idea about coloring and pouring epoxy into the routed areas?

[Tim M Barnes]

Steve - thanks for the reply, but I wound up going a different way than epoxy, and wanted to follow up on this thread for anyone else interested.

Instead of using a round bit, I noticed that the layer just under the top walnut layer is actually mdf (or similar) on the plywood I bought. So I switched to a 3/4 flat bit and only went down into that second layer. This left me with a void free / even surface to paint.

Some pictures are attached below of the results. My full process was:

1) Cut out a 3/4" thick MDF template of the tile on my CNC - this gave me perfect dimensions and rounded corners
2) 2 coats of Sealcoat followed by Gel Satin poly on 1 side of the walnut plywood - this gave me smooth finish for paint mask and stops paint bleeding
3) Rough cut the walnut plywood to just a little bigger than the template size
4) Avery Paint Mask applied to each plywood tile blank
5) Screw the template onto the back of each tile blank
6) Flush trim each tile blank to the template on the router table (1/2" flush bit)
7) Screw each tile onto CNC table from underneath (using same holes from template attachment) and cut letters / numbers
8) Wood filler on any edge voids - then lightly sand edges
9) Spray edges and letters with primer+paint combo (black for all letters except the heart)
10) Remove paint mask

Overall, I was pretty happy with the project (more importantly, the wife was as well). I learned a few tips and tricks from the sign-maker professionals, and got to use my CNC for more than making parts for a new CNC.


250374250375250376250377