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I have been carving some wildlife and farm animal plaques recently, and I want to just like glaze them so the features stand out. What is the best thing to use for this? I tried doing a couple coats of spray shellac, then oil base stain over that and it worked ok, but not really what I was looking for. I also tried a gel stain and that worked a little better but still not great. Anyone got advice?
It really depends on the wood. some woods like poplar soak up stain quickly and can be splotchy so on those I use boiled linseed oil to give it color then I spray about 5 coats of lacquer (comes in a spray can). The spray lacquer is nice because there is no sanding between coats and you can apply the next coat in 15 to 20 minutes.
On harder wood I still use tung or boiled linseed oil but stain is a option as it does not splotch up like softer woods. I often also use stain pens or a brush to apply accent stain to areas of a carve as well. I still then spray lacquer as my go to finish. If you want a high gloss finish then use polyurathane which requires sanding or steel wool between coats. For outside plaques I use a spray Spar Urathane.