seal, paint, crest or paint, crest, seal?

[bbassi]

what works best for wood arrows?

[Jeremy]

I've had luck with seal, paint then crest.  Seal was Minwax Poly, paint was Rustoleum, crest was testors.  No issues using any of the fletch glues.

[madness522]

I stain, seal with gasket lacquer then crest. Over the cresting I put a coat or two of poly.  The gasket lacquer has smeared every cresting paint I have tried.

[Adam Keiper]

I don't like to crest over bare wood, since the paint tends to bleed. At the the same time, I like to have a finish over the cresting to protect my tedious work.  So for me, it's dye, 2 seal coats, crest, then more seal coats.  

Just have to make sure you're paints are compatible with the sealant.  Water based sealers only over enamel or laquer paints.  Anything over acrylic paints.  If you want to use a laquer finish over laquer based paints, you'll need to add an interim sealer of water based poly over the paint, to lock it in.