Poker

[Ashbys]

Very Nice !

[Quarve]

It is hard to see the progress, but a Word Whimsey creates a lot of surface to be sanded. From here, I intend to stain the letters and use acrylic to paint the card suits.
I have shown the overall picture of the project to this point and three close-ups.
Roy

[Josef]

It has been a pure joy to watch the progress on this one. Very intricate carving and you must be scared witless of damaging it every time you touch it? Joe.

[Quarve]

I finally got around to staining the project. I started with a pre stain and selected Red Oak for the stain. I like to keep the contrast of stained letters and plain links. As you can see, the stain bleeds onto the links and other places that I do not want stained. The Xacto knife is ideal for scraping off the bleeding then some sanding. The letters will need to be lightly sanded as well. I intend to paint the card suits after cleaning up the mess from staining. When I do the light sanding of the stained letters, I do so in rubber gloves because without the gloves, the oil from my fingers gets mixed in with the dust from sanding the stained letters and then I get it on the links that I want left natural.

[Quarve]

I got the suits painted and a couple of coats of Wipe on Poly on the entire project. I used t put only one coat of Poly on before steel wooling -- then I found that in some places the Poly would soak in so well that the steel wool would mar the surface so that I would have to sand off the steel wool tainted wood before proceeding. The project is now steel wooled and needs to be tack ragged before putting on the final coat(s). So near, yet so far.
Roy