Attention - All River Table Makers & 'poxy Fellow Travellers

[Yojevol]

I am making 'rustic' shelves from yew timber which feature lots of fissures and cracks which I am attempting to fill and stabilise with resin. The larger ones are up to 20mm wide and the full thickness deep - 36mm. These are mostly filled with rotted bark. I had assumed the resin would soak into the bark and stabilise it, however this is not the case. Where the resin has filled a free space it has fully cured but the rotted bark remains a guey mess. It would seem the resin has soaked in but not cured. Could this be because there is too much moisture present? The sound timber has a moisture content of 11% so would assume the bark is much the same.
I've also noticed that where resin has spread out over the clean shelf surface it has not adhered unless it is a very thin film. Anything over, say, 0.25mm remains uncured at the interface so I'm left with a resin lamina which easily flakes off.
Any advice greatly appreciated
Brian

 

[Blister]

Most maker I have seen on the web allways remove all the old dead bark back to solid timber then prime the edges with resin before filling with the bulk amount to fill the entire void.

 

[Fitzroy]

I've not done a huge amount of epoxy work (perhaps a half dozen bits) but I've never had anything remain gooey, the deepfill stuff can take a long time to cure in cold conditions 5-7 days at <15°C. Gooey would suggest an incorrect ratio of components or a poor mix. I've also never had the resin not adhere to a surface, I always use a sanded finish not a planed one and I have noticed that epoxy spilt on a planed finish will flake off quite easily. Water and epoxy are not to my knowledge miscible so wet wood could potentially change the bond but should not stop the cure.

I'm a subscriber to Blacktailsudio on YT and he has lots of videos on using epoxy and lots of 'experiments', you may find a video on the effects of rotten wood. He has recently taken to painting any soft punky wood with thin quick set epoxy before any poor, although he explains this is to avoid air bubbles at later stages.

Sorry not much help as never had either issue.