Just a quick note…I do a lot of epoxy inlays on Baltic Birch plywood and I have struggled with maintaining clean lines on my cutouts. Painter’s tape is not really that helpful without an initial coating of something to seal the grain. I’ve use Polycyric in the past…it’s ok, but not great. You still get some bleed through that follows the grain lines. The answer is spar urethane. Prior to cutting, top coat with spar urethane, let it dry for a couple of days, then use the painters tape. Much improved results.
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Very nice! You think the spar urethane just soaks in far enough to seal the grain?
Yep. I don’t know if there’s a capillary effect with epoxy, but my experience tends to support it. Spar urethane seals up those tiny channels in the grain.
Mike
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some apply CA or other sealer to the edges of the engraved areas before filling with epoxy.
In my experience it’s better to have a sealed surface to prevent bleed when doing infill on engraved birch ply. I’ve found that polyurethane also is better than lacquer or polycrylic in this respect, as you have found. I think it penetrates better. It’s important to have a very smooth surface and use a credit card/gift card as a scraper against the grain to make sure the masking conforms to any grain dips.
If you need to do an infill, but not have a sealed surface, you can use a clear acrylic spray to seal the engraving end grain. Just make sure to do multiple coats and rotate the piece so you get all the edges sealed.
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The epoxy infill is cool. When you are doing the epoxy infill do you remove the masking after the epoxy dries or before?
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I’ve tried both ways and I’ve found that it’s easier to pull tape just when the epoxy starts to get tacky. If you let it harden, it gets to be a challenge.
Mike
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