WoodShed Sign...I have a question.

Jay, Zap and others... I have a finishing question for my wood shed sign. I want to stain the lettering to pronounce it and then apply a sealer to maximize the sign's life outdoors. What do you guys recommend for a stain and or sealer? The sign is a plank of cedar. Thanks.

Experiment with some scrap first. I believe stain will spread outside of the lettering...you should probably use paint in the letters, then sand the surface to get sharp edges.

You are right on the money Dan.
Paint the lettering, if needed let dry real well and sand flat wood area, personally i would seal it with a marine Spar top coat.
Tip on the spar if you use it, very light coats and make sure its very dry before adding more. Or it will wrinkle and you will not be happy.
Some of the spray polyurethanes are pretty good too.
I owned a sign company for 10 years.

I like this idea....just built my shed last year so new weekend project for me. Hope mine looks as good as yours does.

The comical part about this is that I don't even have a woodshed! I just feel the need to hang one on my regular shed that sits right next to my stacks. Muncy, here's what I did. Took a font I liked on the computer and printed it out. I then taped that to the plank and traced my letters with a utility knife (exacto will work better). After peeling printout off, I then went over my lines deeper. I took the $20 chisel I bought from the woodcarving show and went at it. After that I ran up to A.C. Moore and bought a $14 wood burning pen to give my work some color. The smell of burning cedar smelled pretty good. I may sand, but will definitely seal. I just have to drill two wholes and hang. Will post a pic when it's hung.

Looking better all the time! That's basically what I had in mind although I may go with a larger sign of some sort as the shed is 24' long. I don't have any cedar on hand but I'll be looking for some as that's a really nice color contrasted with the black lettering. To seal, could I not just use some of my penetrating deck stain as long as I like the color it produces?

Thanks for ur compliments. Got me man...I'm a newb at this.

I make lots of custom signs like that. For the printing, just like you, do it on the computer and paste the printout to the board using a glue stick. Then free-hand router does all the lettering and artwork. For the "burned" appearance, use a propane torch. Or paint all the letters with color of choice, spray can paint works well. Then a quick pass through the planer does the "sanding" job.

Looks good. Makes a nice looking Avatar too. ;-)

Isn't wood shed 2 words? :red:

Well he does have the S capitalized. So it is kinda 2 words ;-)

Yes Nate it is. I liked the look of it that way. Go figure.

Funny fossil...ThankYou!

My 1966 edition of Webster's New World Dictionary shows "woodshed" as being one word. It provides no other options for the spelling.
I sometimes used woodshed as one word and sometimes as two. One would think I should know better after all these years.

Woodshed spelling be darned. I still like Stax's sign and would suggest he not change it. ;-)

Yes! Thanks John.

good idea burning the color in. Looks great!