A friend of mine found a piece of ash in his in laws barn.  It is already in the shape of a very large baseball bat.  He wants to give it to his son and have all of his teammates sign throughout the years.  What can you do to keep the marker from bleeding when they sign?  If you put a shellac or something on first will the marker stick or rub off?  If you put shellac on after will it smudge the marker?

 

Has anyone played with something like this?

 

I thought it was a great idea to do this.  I might do this for my son as well.  (with a homemade baseball bat of course!:) )

 

Thank you for any comments! 

You might try these-

https://www.dickblick.com/categories/drawing/markers/archival/?gclid=CjwKCAjwy_aUBhACEiwA2IHHQA7NMfuHKlhiHewG8Wo53rC9euHEASQOYjPeCQ2T5Bzb3e3monclSxoCT6MQAvD_BwE

I used to do something similar for some of the plaques I made for a trophy shop. Each piece would get a coat of Zinsser sanding sealer and one coat of water base poly. I would then apply the markings with a Sharpie and then give it two more coats of the poly.

 

This wouldn't work very well for multiple sessions of signing but might be worth considering. A spray poly would probably help keep the signatures from running/smearing.

Sharpie won't bleed on oak, mark away, then finish.

The solvent for Sharpie (and dry-erase marker) is alcohol.  Both lacquer and shellac have alcohol as their solvent so I'd not top-coat with that.

 

I recently bought some paint-based markers, but didn't top coat them.  https://www.walmart.com/ip/Painters-Medium-Point-Red-Paint-Pen-1-Each/19586063

All good info guys.  We will have to use some practice pieces before he really goes for it.

Thank  you all for the help!

Micron pens are used to write on things in the museums.  It is some kind of pigment ink in it  I bought one and have yet to have it smear on me no matter what finish I use over it.