filling small voids

[fshenkin94]

I am working on a maple burl pen. I have turned it down and sanded but am finding that there are several very small voids in the wood. Although they are small, they are large enough to be noticable to eye and touch. What should I use to fill them in before applying my final finish?

 

[leatherjunkie]

thats a question that will have more than one answer.

one you can use the thin ca glue and the wood shavings/sanding dust that you turned off of the pen. stuff the wood shavings/sanding dust into the voids and soak it down with the thin ca glue. you want to build it up above the pen so you can sand it down flush.

you could also get some of the inlace material from woodturners catalog. its a powder form and you just stuff it into the voids like the sanding dust.woodturners catalog has a few diferent types of crushed powder materials and colors that will work great to fill the voids. just click on the link below so you can see what is available.

http://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/catalog/decorative_mat.html

hope this helps.

 

[alamocdc]

If you follow LJ's first piece of advice, be EXTREMELY careful when applyig the thin CA or you'll "wash" the dust out of the voids you are trying to fill. DAMHIKT. This is the process I use and it works quite nicely.

 

[chigdon]

I do the exact oposite and fill with medium clear CA. That way you see the void and see the texture of the inside of the void too. That is one of the things that makes burls so nice IMHO. The only catch is you have to use a CA finish to do this.

 

[wdcav1952]

I do similar to Chris. I use thick CA, but really thick or medium will work. Chris, if you use the CA as a sealer, you can sand down to where the CA is, if I remember Russ' quote correctly "in the wood, not on the wood, you can use Enduro if you wish.

 

[alamocdc]

I use lacquer and have encountered no problems. Knock pen.

 

[DaveC]

I usually use the technique in BB's video. Sand with 220 or 320 apply thin CA without clearing the dust, while holding the sandpaper against the blank. The slurry formed will fill the voids. Sand as and finish as desired.

 

[Dario]

I use CA too.

For sealing pores, I clear the pores before putting thin CA all over the entire pen. This is to have uniform finish later. If there are remaining pores, I use CA of different thickness, depending on pore size.

For fixing big inclusions, I pack it with sawdust then thin CA. If the inclusion is really big, I may do this in layers to make sure I have good base. Again I apply CA on entire pen afterwards as described above.

I don't apply CA with wood dust and forming "slurry" because I want to show the wood under that I just finished (uncluding pores)...not hide it under slurry. JMHO.

As you can see...different folks have different styles.

 

[Radman]

I recently had a blank that upon wiping with DNA before finishing, had a small piece come off. I filled with powedered azurite. It filled just fine, but upon finishing, it blended in so well it looked like I just marked the surface with a blue magic marker. Don't think that was the right instance to use the powder but rather a crushed product would have worked better.
FWIW
Radman[8D]