Need help with a knot on a turned table leg

[Wells Griffith]

I made a 4x4 cherry post out of two 2" pieces of cherry. I turned it down to 3.25 inches. When I got down to around that depth I noticed there was a giant knot in the middle of the piece of wood (see picture). This is going to be one of two table legs in a trestle dining room table I am making for my house. Anyone have any ideas how to fix it, or am I screwed?

http://imgur.com/gallery/btepJxc/new

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Did a piece come out of it and if so did it come out in one piece? If so, epoxy the piece back into place and turn it.

You can fill holes like this with sawdust and epoxy and then turn them.

[John Keeton]

Fill it with coffee grounds and Titebond, let it dry and continue on! It will be a "character accent."

[David Walser]

The answer depends on the shape of the leg and where that knot will fall in the design. If the knot is at the bottom of a cove, you may turn most, if not all of it away. If not, as Ken suggests, you may be able to fill the hole so that it's inconspicuous. If it were me, I'd cut the knot out and splice in solid wood. Then, I'd be sure the repair faced the inside of the table when all was done. To make the repair, you'd need a sled for your table saw to hold the round blank securely. Then, you can cut a flat bottomed dado the width of the knot.

HTH

[Wells Griffith]

Thanks for the responses folks. The material in there did come out but not in one piece. As far as the design, the knot is in the center of the leg where there will be smooth wood. I think I am going to patch it and see how it looks. If it just looks too bad then i will try cutting it out and splicing in a new chunk.

[Ian Moone]

Making furniture here from hardwoods with massive keno inclusions (paper pulp wood prior to that) has become very fashionable of late.

When I was doing so - I developed a "methodology" for dealing with such gum pockets & knots etc.

If its a really MINOR defect, then disguise it to blend in! To do this I would very fine sand the parent wood and collect the fine sanding dust & mix epoxy resin with it & fill the defect - let it harden then sand down to match the surrounding area. After polishing such defects virtually disappear to the eye.

If it is too large a defect to disguise - then make a feature out of it - or "character accent" as John Keeton above suggests! For me it was epoxy resin again, but this time mixed with black ochre used in tanning leathers as a dye. Failing that I would use black charcoal very finely ground and sifted thru a flour sifter mixed with the resin.

What looks REALLY disappointing is when makers try to disguise large defects, with sawdust and epoxy and they become sort of neither a character accent nor a disguise... they just draw the eye...& highlight the edefect and ineffective disguise methodology.

Others Mileage May Vary.

Splicing better wood in & re - turning would also work & yes locate the splice to the inside where not seen.

[Reed Gray]

Well, if you are going for a look where the person you are making the table is for will be happy with a 'design opportunity', then fill it in, turn it down and sand. No matter what material you are using for fill, as deep as that one is, you will need to do it in layers, and let the layers dry and cure in between applications. Apply about 1/8 inch or so at a time. Shrinkage in filler can cause later cracks, or even pulling out of the wood or away from the edges. I have heard of using Bondo, that car body repair stuff, and I think it can be dyed.

robo hippy

[John Keeton]

Regarding Reed's comments on filling in layers, with many substances that would be sound advice. However, using coffee grounds and Titebond, I have had 100% success in doing it all in one fill. With a cavity this deep, you would have to fill it in layers so that it can be "stuffed" into the depth of the hole using a small dowel or such other "tamper", but you can do it all in one setting. There is very little glue involved - mostly grounds, so there is little shrinkage. And, you need to fill it above the surface anyway in order to get a good cut. This is my go to method of filling voids as it looks more natural than most fillers. I mix the glue and grounds on a paper plate with a palate knife so I can get good coverage of the glue and grounds.

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

I'm sorry to disagree with the group but think of how much work will go into the completed table and ask yourself how you will feel when you see that knot on a finished project. I would bite the bullet now and replace the leg. Just curious, how are you using round legs on a trestle table? My minds eye sees one very wide lag on each end of the table with a stringer between.
faust

[Wells Griffith]

I packed it full of coffee grinds and titebond. If it does not look passable than I will just turn a new one. The table I am building is based off of this http://www.finewoodworking.com/fwnpdffree/011193072.pdf. It is not going to be exactly like this but a version of it. Thanks for the help guys.

[Ian Moone]

Turn a new one!.
The only reason you'd repair this one is if you don't have any more cherry wood to replace it!.
As for Bondo? Just no! Bondo Polyester resin has a high shrink rate (greater than 6% from memory) so is likely to pull away from the walls of the timber where you have repaired it!.
Epoxy resin is less than 1% shrinkage.
Coffee grounds and tight bond?
Tight bond is a Poly Vinyl Acetate (White wood glue). Coffee grounds OK they might be the right dark brown color at least!
BUT
My experience working with PVA in anything but pine (white timbers) here (where all our hardwoods are grown in acidic ph soil and thus the sap is acidic) is that over time the sap acid attacks the PVA glue in the joint & the vinyl "expands" under the varnish finish to form a ridge above the timber finish line that's both visible to the eye and to the touch which on something like a dining table is beyond annoying!
I am sorry but I call those particular aspects as simply "bad advice".
Others Mileage (without my experience) May Vary.
I just have to call it as I see it, having made and learned from these very mistakes in the past!.
Once I had my own mill & kiln - replacement timber for anything defective like this, wasn't even a question.
But in the early days when timber was not as abundant (like when using recycled timber etc) - sometimes one had to make such choices.
I even experimented once with Urea Formaldehyde glues...after reading a promising research paper about their durability!
20 years later I am STILL repairing / re-gluing some of those items of furniture with epoxy resin to this day!
It takes about 20 years before you learn enough about glues from trial and error to be any good at it!.
Wood glues is vastly 'under rated' subject / topic.

[John Keeton]

Ian, my familiarity with Aussie woods is limited, but over several decades of working with the domestic species on this side of the pond, and particularly with cherry used here, I have found Titebond to be a superior glue. I have pieces constructed over 30 years ago using the original Titebond, now in use for 60 years, and the joints are still stable and solid. I don't doubt your experiences, nor the use of epoxy. I am just relating my experience.

As to the issue of whether to patch or replace, I think Wells will need to be comfortable with that decision given what he intends for the overall character of the piece and his availability of stock. He is already gluing up the legs, so that is one unavoidable concession for him. Perhaps the finished and patched leg will work nicely into the overall project. If not, at this point, he has wasted little. The turning on the leg as depicted in the article he has referenced is minimal and can be replicated without a significant loss of time.

[Ian Moone]

Not doubting you John at all.

Gave up counting how many gallons of PVA & Crosslinked PVA I used on melamine kitchen carcasses over the years, Literally bought it 5 gallons at a time... and had mutliple bottles all over the shop at every assembly bench.

Not saying its a bad glue - I just quit using it on furniture with our Aussie hardwoods. Most of the sap green in our timber tested around Ph 5.7-6.2 (i.e. the acid side of neutral ~6.7Ph) depending were it was harvested.

Some timber harvested out of paddocks that had been used for agriculture (Grazing hay growing etc) could test as low as 4.2Ph.

What I found early on gluing up table tops etc in these Eucalyptus Species hardwoods was that the acid in the sap (timber was kiln dried down to 12% EMC) - that within 3 or 4 years the sap would attack the PVA glue... and once one component was eaten out by the acidic sap - the Vinyl component left behind under the pressure of the joint would "expand" to form a ridge above the level of the boards. So say a table top with 6 or so wide solid hardwood boards jointed, you'd have rows of little ridges maybe 1mm high down the length of each joint - and they would force the hardened spray varnish (Mirotone 2 pack) upwards away from the surface of the wood. This would frequently fracture the layer of varnish over the ridge of vinyl protruding upwards at the joint and it could flake - not to mention it looks awful.
Worse it draws the eye and occasions people to rub their hand back and forth over the joint & "feel" the bump... and of course comment on the flaw.
We had a furniture display show room open to the public at our furniture factory & you can't display a piece with these types of faults.
We learned early on that PVA glues just weren't compatible with furniture made form our local hardwoods grown in acidic soils & thus containing acidic sap.
We ended up settling in epoxy for solid timber furniture, due to its inert nature and extreme bonding strength, low shrinkage and of course resistance to acids (sap).

But we did use gallons of PVA as I said in kitchen cabinet carcasses construction made from chipboard and melamine sheets produced from Pinus radiata (Spanish maritime pine). These trees were grown in the same soils BUT being plantation grown timbers the soils were treated with crushed dolomitic lime prior to planting to being the soil PH as near as possible to neutral (6.7Ph) and this the sap in the wood chips being "neutral Ph" and less likely to react with the PVA and crosslinked PVA glues.

I still have a hardwood (Jarrah - Eucalyptus marginata) gun cabinet (with bullet proof glass doors) that I made in ~ 1985 (so 40 years ago) for myself & that was the period i was starting out and using PVA glues... the darn ridges in the joints of that solid top on that still 'bug' me to this day! I will probably re-saw the damn thing one day and re join that top - coz it still annoys the crap outta me all these years later!.

I think your soils in the USA are geologically a LOT "younger" than ours, we haven't had an active volcano in this country since Moses was playing full back for Egypt & wearing short pants... so pretty much all of our soils are naturally depleted, impoverished, gutless leeched and slightly acidic.
I suspect that in USA things may be vastly different in terms of Ph of the sap inside your trees & hence timbers as a result ad the problems we experience here with PVA in our native timbers due to acidic sap, might not even exist there.
That's my experience for what little it may be worth. Maybe someone from down under searching the topic will one day gain something from it.