What to do with ambrosia holes?

[Jay Bruckner]

So I had a bunch of silver maples that were sick cut down and there are Ambrosia stains in a lot of the boards I've been cutting from them, which is nice, but I'm not sure what to do with the actual beetle holes. (I'm going to be building a bathroom vanity and kitchen cabinets out of it.)

What do you guys do? Do you fill in the holes with wood putty, or with one of those filler pencils, or epoxy, or do you just leave them the way they were?

[Jerry Wright]

I call them "nature's defects" and fill them with mixtures of clear 5 min epoxy and rotten stone powder. A little powder gives tan, more gives brown and more gives dark brown to black. I like it to look like knots.

[Prashun Patel]

I'd use epoxy. Not worth it to color it. The 'rims' of the holes are black and the epoxy will appear black under finish.

[Jerry Wright]

In CNY, we have really large beetles! :)

[Warren E. Johnson]

I usually just leave the holes. It is character.

Warren

[Danny Hamsley]

I leave the holes, too. No one will ever mistake this wood for "made in China".