Working on a Christmas gift. I got the wood scrap, but I think it’s walnut. Eventually planning to polyurethane and fill in the engraving with black paint, but I’m stuck on how/weather to stain it.
I have a few stains from various projects, but on a sample piece they showed up really dark, and didn’t show the texture that well. It’s a little too late to do boiled linseed oil.
What would you recommend?
The wood looks nice to me as is, I would just do oil. I probably wouldn't use polyurethane unless it needed water protection / durability.
Well my concern is filling in the engraving. I wanted to coat it in something waterproof so I could apply paint and just wipe off the excess. Is there a better way to do that? (Also there's more engraving to be done to the sides)
For getting paint down into an engraving, a simple method is just to get it in there real good regardless of technique, then use a power sander or sanding block to go over the top surface and remove any paint. THEN do your finishing steps. For walnut, Danish Oil is the lazy man's cheat-code.
I was thinking that, but won’t the oil mess with the paint?
Nah, once cured the paint will be quite solvent resistant.