To fill...or not to fill

[woodbloke]

I've been doing allot on my winter project, the Elm Cabinet, and have got around to starting the drawers, having completed the cabinet proper. I have a problem in that the burr elm for the drawer fronts has allot of 'imperfections' as can be seen in the pic, problem is, do I fill these or leave 'as finished'. If I fill the obvious holes in the timber, I was going to use the Liberon wax sticks, but would be interested to hear other peoples views before proceeding further. Drawer construction will be thru' d/t's (only 16 mm thick at the front, so a little thin for lapped d/t's) - Rob

 

[PowerTool]

Think I'd leave them (following the woodturning philosophy of "it's not a defect,it's a feature" :lol: )
Beautiful looking wood,so let it be what it is.

Andrew

 

[David C]

I fear dovetail cutting in your beautiful but wild wood is going to be very challenging indeed.

I would have preferred to use veneer on a straight grained mild piece of solid elm groundwork, whether knife cut or bandsawn.

David C

 

[Chris Knight]

Wot David said re dovetails in that! I have sliced nice wood to about 3mm for drawer fronts and you could do the same with yours.

For filling voids of the size shown, I fear you will be disappointed with wax, it will stand out like a sore thumb. If you fill, I suggest you consider making a feature out of it and use a polyester with metallic or similar filler as turners are wont to use.

 

[Paul Chapman]

I did wonder what you were going to do about all those "features" :?

I've not used wood like that myself, so can't speak from experience. However, i've seen one or two pieces where the maker has used something like car bodywork filler (Isopon?) and it's been very effective. You would, of course, have to go over the whole of the drawer fronts and end up with a fully grain-filled finish - not sure if that's what you wanted. And you would have to find a way of colouring the filler.

I fear that if you don't fill the holes, it might look a bit messy if some fall where the joints are. If you go down this route, you could fill the holes after glueing up or possibly fill the wood before cutting the joints (although that might be a bit hard on your tools).

Maybe I'm just talking rubbish :? :? Just thinking aloud really. Whatever you do, hope it works out well because it's lovely wood and a lovely cabinet (so far) :wink:

Cheers

Paul

 

[woodbloke]

David - you had me very worried for a minute there. I just nipped out the 'shop before a bite of brecky and had a go on some oddments of my burr elm. True, it is a bit tricky and you do need to go very carefully, but it is doable.

Chaps - thanks for the suggestions on my filling problem, please keep them coming - Rob

 

[Paul Chapman]

Rob,

Forget wot I said :lol: :lol:

Paul

 

[Nick W]

I have used shellac sticks in the past, and they work very well, much better than wax which will suffer damage over time. For most voids I'd use black, but you can also melt several near-match colours into the void and stir them a little to give a streaked/grainy efect - just practice on a spare piece of wood first.

 

[garywayne]

Sorry if I'm talking out of place here, and this is only my opinion, but sorry Rob, I don't like the look of through dovetails on that burr. In my opinion it ruins the whole look of that beautiful piece of wood. Especially as it's a draw front.

 

[woodbloke]

Gary - have just nipped out and tried a lapped DT, on a particularly tortuous piece. As can be seen from the pic, the chopping action of the chisel just makes the socket tail crumble away. I think because the saw goes directly onto the shoulder line with a thru' DT this tends to be minimised and the joint becomes a little 'easier' to make, anyway there seems to be less chance of of the pin crumbling - Rob

 

[Anonymous]

I have nver had a good experience with filler and it has always looked awful. No filler!!

 

[David C]

Those through dovetails look great.

Well done.

I have filled voids with clear West epoxy but it is a troublesome and time consuming business.

The idea is that the clear resin lets the natural colour show through.

David C

 

[woodbloke]

DavidC wrote:
.....clear West epoxy

David - I have used the West epoxy adhesive before and know that it only comes in largish containers. I wonder if a clear epoxy adhesive eg. a slow setting Araldite might do the trick, granted it will be messy as its icky stuff to use, but I only want to fill the voids in the drawer fronts. I suppose I could place the completed drawers uppermost on my glueing up table apply the epoxy and let set overnight. Would try it tho' on a scrap piece beforehand - Rob

 

[ivan]

Polyester resin is cheaper than epoxy (but it does shrink a bit). This is used in making stuff from glassfibre, and a big range of colouring pigments are available (mail order, Glassplies). You'd lard it on and sand it off, if that's acceptable. I would think either glass clear encapsulating resin, or standard resin with black pigment?

 

[engineer one]

i agree i would think the idea is to highlight the imperfections,
and to do that i would look at a clear acrylic thing.

in model railways and other modelling people use clear epoxy resins
for modelling water. so maybe you should build a dam round it and pour
the product in. i wonder whether the rustins clear varnish might work too??? having used it on a table i know that it is very clear if you want.

looks good otherwise

paul :wink:

 

[Colin C]

Rob

I would cut the dovetails with a router ( well get most of it out and finish by hand )
If you are going to fill the bit on the fronts I would use some of the off cuts and use them to patch the bits you want to fill, plus doing it this way with the wild grain you should find it hard to see them.

Not wanting to teach you to suck egg but if you want I could do a patch and show you what I mean


Regards Colin
Got my restorers head on :roll: :wink:

 

[garywayne]

I see your point Rob.

I'll just creep back under my rock.
But good luck, and I'm sure you will do a terrific job.

 

[johnnyb]

i would try using a polyester type wood filler. but a stainable one. i think its called wudfil and it has a stainable sticker on it. i get mine from the local paint shop. i is lighter and accepts stain superbly. after completely filling the voids i would sand them flat and stain them with a spirit stain(morrells lightfast) one that didnt change the colour much. this would be a very tricky one to achieve well. this would give you a full grain finish. the key would be to pick the right filler colour and mixing up the right colour stain. but as long as the stain is near the overall tone will be similar. stain used this way can also tie the piece together if bits are from different sources.

 

[engineer one]

given that the whole point of using the burr wood is to show the different
grain patterns etc, i do feel that filling with clear resin and then an overall layer of clear varnish would be the best. the voids would have a 3d quality that would probably enhance the piece, and lead people to ask HOW?

alex tiranti have a good source of clear epoxies.

paul :wink:

 

[woodbloke]

Thanks for all your help and suggestions. I fancy that I'm going to try the 'au naturel' look - a couple of coats of organic Oz tung oil, 6 coats or so of shellac (cut back with some worn 320g between coats) and then a soft matt wax paste to finish - Rob