Filling the holes

[Beefster]

Hi,
I'm a newbie to penturning and I am absolutely loving my experiences right now, however, I have a finishing problem that I don't know how to approach.
I have turned a beautiful piece of Carolina Cherry burl for a Wall St, style pen and although it has a nice smooth finish I have a couple of small natural hollows in the wood that I'm not sure how to fill, or even sure weather I should fill it and just polish the piece and leave the natural look.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[rjwolfe3]

First welcome to the forum! I would recommend filling with inlace or crushed stone or colored epoxy.

 

[iowacobb]

Hi,
......just polish the piece and leave the natural look.

Is the brass tube showing through the voids? If no then I would leave the natural look and feel.

Tim
www.iowacobb.com

 

[mredburn]

What are you using as a final finish Ca? or poly/laquer?

 

[ed4copies]

WELCOME to the forum!!!!

As you can see, whatever you do with a nice piece of wood, MOST will agree with you!!!

Select good wood, you will always look good.





Of course, you will look better if you use resins!! Especially mine!:biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:

 

[purplehaze]

holes

I personally would fill in the voids. Put some CA onto the blank, rub some charcoal or something similar into it. The dark color works well with the cherry burl.

 

[JAB1]

Fill in

I agree with all the above....my experience is to do what you think looks best....if the voids are not too bad, leave them alone and let the wood stay natural. Sometimes , if the void is a natural thing, such as an insect burrow, they can make the final product look natural and good. If they are taking away from the look of the pen, fill them in with CA glue and filler such as crushed stone, charcoal, etc.....choose a color that will blend with your wood. Your finished pen will look sharp.....Allan

 

[Monty]

Not disagreeing with Allen, but an accent color can look good too. All depelds on if you want to hide it or show it off.

 

[jleiwig]

Coffee grounds. CA some coffee grounds in there and It will look the most natural out of all the choices. Only works if your doing a final finish over the pen though.

 

[Beefster]

Thank you so much everyone for your great advice and opinions. The brass tube is not showing so I'm really tempted to go with just leaving as is and doing a final finish. The CA/coffee grinds mix sounds really interesting though. Whatever I decide I'll post a photo.
Cheers everyone.

( I think I'm going to like this forum)

 

[juteck]

If you want a high gloss finish, fill the holes as mentioned above. If you're going for a matt or satin finish for a "natural" feel, the holes might give it more of a natural look.