Lettering Cedar

[bpfohler]

I was asked to carve a memorial that made from eastern red cedar.
Iv'e read some older post about people having good luck by sealing the carved areas with 2 coats 3lb.cut shellac and then painting.
Either that or I was thinking about gold leaf but didn't know if the size would be affected by the oils in the cedar.
Anybody have experience with cedar?

[zeykr]

Robert, I cut quite a bit of local grown eastern red cedar. Are you vcarving?

For Vcarving, I finish with 4 or 5 coats of wiped on Helmsman spar varnish thinned 50% with mineral spirits. Mask with Gerber mask II and vcarve , then seal mask with a couple coats spray shellac, then spray paint.

[donchapman]

When painting, I've had bleed through of the oils from eastern red cedar unless I prime with a couple of coats of oil based stain blocking fast dry (1 hr.) exterior primer. I've had to use as many as 4 coats of primer on Ipe to keep its oils from bleeding through the finish paint. Here's a photo of a 2'x8' eastern red cedar ranch sign with the lettering and star primed and painted and the background left unfinished to weather natrual gray.
5639

[bob]

I can't comment on the technical aspects but I sure like the sign! Well done!

Bob

[joe]

Me too Bob,

I really like this sign. It's hard to find planks where the shape of the tree remains. Don, how big is this plank and how did you attach it to the crossmember?

Keep up the good work.

Joe

[donchapman]

Thanks, Bob and Joe.
I went to the saw mill and watched them cut this approximate 2'x8'x2" slab from the log.
I also bought its brother/sister in case I screwed up this one, which I've learned through the school of hard knocks is money well spent.
All the photos I took of the details of the making and hanging of this sign got lost when my hard drive crashed last spring, but my best recollection is that I lag screwed some farm gate hardware to the back so it hangs by gravity like a farm gate with the male long bolts passing through the structural beam and the female receivers lag bolted to the back of the sign.
It's been up several years and has weathered well with the white lettering and star still contrasting well with the weathered gray background. This is a bird hunting ranch near Austin where folks (blokes?) fly from such places as England to shoot birds. The $250 I charged for hanging the sign wasn't enough since the landscape contractor and I hoisted it about 20 feet up a teetering scaffold that felt like it could fall at any moment.