Burl holes finishing?

[alex grams]

I am working on a project with some burl that has some tiny holes in it. What is the best way to fill and level the holes prior to applying a finish? The burl is an oak burl and the wood will be stained a darker color (not walnut dark, but certainly darker than the natural color of the oak).

Thanks in advance.

[Jim Tobias]

Alex,
If this is veneer, I have done it three ways:
1- cut out some similar color material from scarp that matches wiht the hole area and using a very sharp chisel, crush it into very fine pieces. Then mix in a little glue(light or dark depending on wood match) then fill hole. Sand level and stain or topcoat

2-Use wood dust from sanding the same wood as the hole and mix that with glue (light or dark depending on wood match)then fill hole. Sand level and stain or topcoat

3- Use Famowood and either use one of their tinted pre mixed colors to match your wood or use natural colored Famowood and tint with transtint dyes to get the color of filler you need.

Of the 3 methods, I like and usually get the best results wiht method #1.
#2 is the fastes , but probably yields the most unforgiving results when staining. #3 can work very well, but requires a lot of mixing, testing and making samples and letting it dry to get a good match.


Jim

[Scott Holmes]

Not sure if this is veneer or solid wood... either way I would fill with a clear or tinted epoxy then sand it back flat and top coat.

What is the project? How do you plan to finish it? Water-borne and polys don't stick well to epoxy.

[alex grams]

it is a burl oak veneer. The holes are in dark spots where knots used to be, largest is about the size of 2-3mm. Finished is still to be determined, most likely to be a stain to darken the wood, then probably a spray on water based poly.

Jim, methods one and two sound similar, just one is with wood chip chopped up and the other is sawdust, either one just mixed with glue.

What kind of glue are you talking about? Normal PVA? Like i said, the holes are in the center of dark knots, so an almost black mix would fill the holes and be hard to notice.

[Jim Tobias]

Alex,
#1 and #2 are almost the same. The difference is #1 fills the void wiht mostly wood and #2 has more glue in the mix. When using method #1, the larger wood pieces(and they are still small, just not sawdust)swell up and fill up most of the void. In method #2, the glue color is more evdient than the wood.
As for the glue, I use either yellow Titebond(for light colored mixes), Titebond III for medioum colored mixes and the real Dark Titebond for the darkest mixes.
I did a fair amount of what you are describing with some English Brown Oak burl veneer. I took some scrap pieces and actually cut out some of the knothole material and used that in the mix. That gives you the color match you want. If you use a scalpel, you can actually cut out a small knothole and fit it into the damaged onehope that makes sense).

Jim

[alex grams]

Thanks for the info. Now to just do some veneer work. :)