Sawdust fillers

[Kittyhawk]

Everybody knows that to get the perfect match to fill a nail hole or other blemish in timber you use fine sanding dust from the piece you want to fill, míx it with wood glue, epoxy etc, fill the hole with the prepared mixture, sand, varnish, and it will blend in perfectly.
Well it doesn't work for me.
I have tried it a number of times using epoxy and PVA glue as the binders and when varnished the repair is invariably darker than the surrounding wood. Clearly I'm doing something wrong. Can anyone help please?

 

[TRITON]

superglue(cyanoacrylate) and wood dust ?. Ive seen this used, not tried it myself.

Or you could experiment with lighter, or even something like flour and superglue and look to try to stain it.
For nails, maybe secret nailing*

Not to be confused with secret nailing, for floorboards.
You used to be able to get a chisel jig, which enabled you to first cut in a flap of timber in wherever you were nailing. You would then hammer in the pin, then glue down the flap to hide the nail head.

 

[dzj]

Fine sanding dust + glue will always be darker.
Better to do some micro inlaying and glue a sliver of similar grained wood over the hole (enlarge it to get a better match with surrounding grain)
Sometimes you can be sneaky and glue a small knot over the hole.

 

[Kittyhawk]

Fine sanding dust + glue will always be darker.

Yes, that's my experience - contrary to all the online woodworking how-to's and those beggars on utube..

 

[recipio]

Veritas make a conical drill bit which matches the angles of a pencil sharpener. You pick the closest match possible and make the conical dowel in the sharpener. I found it works but it is a bit of a faff. Its probably easier to buy a headless nail pinner which barely leave an indent.

 

[woodieallen]

You can also find that you get dust etc from the sanding disc/sheet and that will also affect the colour.