Use of fillers

[Wayne Spence]

On another thread the turner mentioned his piece was of fine grained wood and did not need a filler. Do any of you turners use a filler such as silex(finely ground silica)? I mostly hear of sanding sealers for bowls. At one time flatworkers used it a lot but now I don't know.

[Curt Fuller]

I've never heard of "silex" but I have a friend that is a professional woodturner. Most of his work is spindle work and most of that leaves his shop unfinished for the customer to finish to match whatever it goes with. But on several occasions I've seen him use drywall mud as a sanding filler. After sanding to 220 or so he'll use a damp paper towel and just dob it into the drywall mud and use it both as a fine sanding compound and a woodgrain filler. The time that interested me most was when he was finishing some black walnut newel posts and balusters using the drywall mud. When he shot them with poly they shined like glass with none of the open grain typical of walnut. But you couldn't tell there was any hint of the white drywall mud.

[Wayne Spence]

I looked it up in "Finishes and Finishing Techniques"-Taunton Press just to make sure my memory was OK. Silex is/was the trade name for finely ground silica or quartz. It comes as a paste and can be applied with a brush. It is generally rubbed off with a gunny sack or coarse cloth. I used it doing flat work with oak and walnut. I didn't know until I just read the section in the book that plaster of paris is also used and works well with aniline dyes. P of P is gypsum which is also wallboard and I believe the mud you are speaking of is also gypsum with a binder. In the 70's most of the young woodworkers would not use a filler as it was not "natural", they applied a coat of Watco and left the wood dull. However I would remind them that I never saw a piece of oak or walnut in the woods that looked like one of their finished wood pieces.