I'm almost finished with mine. hard because I have no work space in my new apartment, and i'm hiding it from the partner so she its a treat for her when I finish it. I also have a ton of pretty up close pictures of the disneyland plaques that I can upload here for you guys if you want color references. I painted mine espresso and I think i should have done even darker, almost a black brown. I used rub n buff (and i've only used it a little in the past) and had some issues getting an even finish with it.. it still looks great, but up close, my perfectionist self is bothered.. lol.
So here are my tips for finishing this up.
It's incredibly clean and well done, BUT, if you are at all a stickler, take the time and sand it, and make sure it looks good to you. THEN hit it with some primer. If you see more imperfections that you couldn't spot before, sand them again. You can always reprimer or just cover it with the paint later. The shellac based primer is a good primer, but the white color (all i found at least) can be an issue if you have only a thin layer of the dark brown over it. I had to do some touchups with paint, and even used a black sharpie for a small white spec i spotted last night. haha...
Sand your edges and trim very well, and make them nice and flat adn smooth. Spray will adhere just fine to the rougher texture of the edges, but rub and buff wont polish up nicely on that. The front facing trim is pretty smooth already, but just go over it with some fine sandpaper to get it perfectly consistant. Same with the letters. I used tiny bits of sandpaper, and little tiny file picks to really get the details on the lettering to pop. Then I used some compressed air to blow all the debris away, and was ready to primer.
The texture of the background behind the lettering is rough. It should be that way, and it is on the real plaque as well. This can be a problem spot for painting, because if you do use the white primer, then brown on top, if you rub that texture and any flakes off, or while you are detailing with the gold, it's easy to scratch that up if you aren't careful, and then you have white you'll need to touch back up!
With the letters, just go very slow. I suggest starting top left and working your way down left to right. It keeps your hands out of the fresh stuff, and you can even rest your arm for a more precise grip/aim that way. Once you are happy with the letters, then you can do the trim and not worry about your arm being in it!
That's all i can really suggest on my end. Take your time, and don't rush! And since there are 5 different gold rub n buff colors, test them out on some spare wood! Do some brown on it, dry, then try some rub n buff to see how you like the finish. My gold was the regular antique gold, and it looks very nice, but some might prefer the champagne type ones, or the european.. so just beware of what you are buying and using before putting it on the finished product!
