urn and filler question

[curtis rosche]

the apple burl i am going to make into an urn has some large cracks. i plan on filling them in. i was thinking of epoxy with charcoal, or maybe epoxy with either copper grindings or copper bits. or just inlaying whole wire into the epoxy. i thought of the copper because my stepdad was an electrician, anyother possible fillers you can think of? or a way to easily make copper grindings?

[Kathy Marshall]

I would think it would be pretty easy to get copper shavings or bits with a piece of copper pipe and a rasp or file, the coarser the rasp the bigger the bits.

[Marty Eargle]

Just mount a chunk of copper up on your lathe and make a ton of shavings and you can always get a screen and filter out the small bits.

[curtis rosche]

my sources of copper is wire used for household wiring

[Bruce Pratt]

Copper powder can be obtained from Inlace. Google: inlace "penny copper" for suppliers. Take a look at this thread for an example of use. http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?150328-Oak-NE-Wing&
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Bruce

[Marty Eargle]

You could always melt down the wire without too much trouble if you have experience in that kind of thing. I think if the cracks are the right size and shape, some random lengths of wire epoxied in the gap would be a neat design feature. It's probably a different direction than I'd go with an urn, but as long as it has special meaning...you can't knock it.

[Jim Burr]

I did a mesquite HF awhile ago and used black epoxy with copper Pearl Ex powder to fill fissures. Pearl Ex is found at Michales or online. Other colors...silver, blue, flamingo pink look cool too!

[David Reed]

Free brass grinding/cutting chips at any hardware (large volumes at Home Depot) in the key cutting department.

[Thom Sturgill]

Depending on scale - get some stranded wire of different gauges and cut to short lengths (I think 5/8" to 1" or so depending on wire gauge and size of filled area) and separate and make sure the pieces retain some curve. Dye the epoxy semi-translucent, the color needs to work with some aspect of the wood and the wire.