poplar wood finishing

[myshop1044]

I have been ask to create a sign for a lawyer's office. I was going to use popular and I will paint 90% of the sign. I have never painted popular before.
my question is, do you use a sealer , if so which one, on the carved areas to get a smooth finish before painting the rest of the sign.
there will be a small trim on the outside of the sign that will be stained.
the region will be royal blue and the rest will be colors as shown.
any help will be great.

[dehrlich]

I always just use sanding sealer, i.e. dewaxed shellac before painting most woods. You can sand it off the parts that will be stained if you like. Poplar is tricky to stain no matter what, especially dark colors. My best results have been to wipe on a thin coat and immediately remove any excess. Do it again in a few hours if necessary.

How did you get the colored text on the preview? Is that a function in the 3.0 designer? Very cool. Good luck!

[myshop1044]

All I do is a screen print, then open it up in "Paint", I haven't found out how to do the region in blue as a secondary color.
It covers all the area of the region including the letters.

[fwharris]

For staining I recommend using a staining conditioner to help evening out the colors and avoiding the dark splotches. For painting I seal the wood with spray lacquer.

[gwizpro]

POPLAR is the easiest to stain if you use the right stain. Sherwin Williams makes a BAC wiping stain that is perfect for almost all woods.
It does exceptionally well on poplar, you can start to stain then stop and comeback in 10 minutes and continue where you left off and it blends....
No need to use sealers or pre conditioners to get great results..

MAPLE stains just as easily and gives a consistant color.

We use Poplar, Oak, Red Maple, Hard Maple , Cherry and Walnut on a daily basis and we get excellent results with this stain...

Tom