What am I doing wrong?

[KeystoneChuck]

Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong. I am using a brand new 60 degree V carve bit with Centerline text carving into poplar wood. I carved the letters, sanded, dabbed black flat latex paint in letters let dry completly then sanded board face with 220 grit to get rid of excess paint. My problem is the finer parts of the script wording is very "chippy" and you can really notice with the paint inside now. Am I just not sanding enought to get below chipped parts? I was afraid of sanding too much and losing letter detail. Thats why I used 220 grit and sanded till I got rid of the extra paint on the board face. Where the bit goes deeper into the wood no real noticible chips. With centerline you have no control of the depth. Am I not sanding enough? Should I me using more aggressive grit? Should I not use poplar? I seen some great text projects where they used pine, I thought I was doing a good thing by using poplar.

[jaroot]

You probably have a couple of problems. First Poplar, which I understand is a generic term for various softwoods, fuzzes up a lot and is very soft. I really can't tell for sure from your picture but I guessing that what you are really having a problem with is bleeding. The soft large grain of the poplar is soaking up the paint. The way that I minimize the bleed is to first treat the wood with sealer or finish and then paint the letters after it dries. That usually stops the bleeding for me and makes the letter much crisper after you sand off the excess.

[gregsolano]

I tried poplar last year because it was cheap at home depot. Had to stop using it because it was to soft and stains and paints just soaked right in and spread quickly. Also way to much fuzzies.

[easybuilt]

I use dalys benite to seal the wood and Marsh's Spray Stencil black ink. Then I sand it clean and it does not leave a choppy look. It is crisp an clean. The marsh ink does a great job and comes in black, red, blue, green, orange, yellow and white. I have stopped using popular because I don't like how it takes stains and the fuzzies.

[KeystoneChuck]

Thanks for the feeback. Should I route,treat wood, pain, then surface sand whole face? Or should I treat, route, paint, surface sand? And when I say treat I mean min wax waterbased sanding sealer. My main goal is to have the letters pop with some color but I am no painter by far. My parents took my paint by numbers book off of me when I was child and sharp objects for that matter (Hint Hint) What are your thought on MDF. I use TONS of it with my other signs I do (interior vinyl) I just wanted to try something a little more classy. I'm sick of working with MDF but if I can get consistant results I'll stick with using it.

[jaroot]

You want to route, treat/seal, paint then surface sand. I like the way that pine carves better than Poplar but when I find poplar with those great green and purple stripes I can't help but pick it up and carve something out of it.

Like this project:http://forum.carvewright.com/showthr...489#post170489

[easybuilt]

I route, treat/ seal, paint and sand. I use a lot of pine. Here is pine and black stencil spray paint. Hope it helps.

[KeystoneChuck]

LOVE the lighthouse. Does pine "fuzz" up like I am getting with poplar. I haven't tried routing pine because everyone talkes about how softwoods were bad to carve with. But doing further research on the web the majority of sign guys are using pine for their text signs and a few are using western red cedar. I use cedar alot in my fencing business; its super soft and I could only think it would fuzz beyond belief in the router just like it does in my planer/jointer knives. A huge sign maker in my area was using three diffrent species of wood now he only offers white pine in natural or he will put a varnished finish over acrylic colored letters.

[KeystoneChuck]

Easybuilt,
Are you using V carve bit for your Tic Tac Toe board?

[easybuilt]

Some of it, V60. I think the letters and lines. I use pine and western red cedar for 95% of my signs. Maple carves beautifully too.