Okay, now, after you've let your shafts hang and the urethane set you'll need to "clean" them up again.
As with the dye, take 0000 steel wool and buff/sand them smooth. Wipe off the residue and you're ready to start cresting.
You'll need your pencil again to mark the locations you've selected: Center crest and the crest's borders as well as any other lines you want to paint on. Mark it just so you can see your mark as it turns on the jig.
Ideal work environment:
Make sure your brushes are clean and the bristles are even. Remove any bristles that do not lay in uniformity. While painting, keep bristles saturated with paint. If you do mess up on the crest, you can remove the crest paint with mineral spirits. Clean the shaft completely with the spirits and a shop rag and start over.
Apply a base coat with flat white. More critical for painting broader areas.
After the base coat has time to set, apply first color. I start with the border lines and work my way to center:
In this case, I used flat white for a base, blue for borders and gloss white for the main crest. (Note to self: Learn what these things are called by the pros.
ops: )
Once you finish one arrow hang it to allow the paint to set. Using the clothesline hanging system, I'll hang them in order so that when I complete number 12, I can go straight back to number 1 with the next color. One color at a time. Once number 12 is complete with the final color, I leave them all to hang over night, preferred, but have dipped in as little a 4 hours in the past. Just allow enough time for the paint to dry before dipping in the sealer.
If you're using gasket lacquer, its best to coat the crest with something like water based poly urethane. The acetone in the gasket lacquer will cause cresting paint to run even if its set properly. Even using water poly the GL can still cause the paint to run. As I said, I'm not a paint expert, I guess it reactivates the paint. Anyway, it'll really trash up a good cresting job and there goes an hour or two wasted.
