Warp (or divot) in a walnut panel glue-up

[Justin Choi]

I glued up some walnut slabs lengthwise for a dining tabletop. There was one slab in particular that had grain/knot that really caught my eye, and that board is the middle piece. It was also my thinnest slab, and also the one with the most twist in it. I left my stock in slightly different thicknesses and used biscuits to force the glue-up to line up the top. It worked pretty well except for one small spot.

I can't remember exactly what happened, but after I did my final glue-up, I came back and took a random orbital sander to the squeeze out. There is a small oval patch, about 3x5", near the corner and along one of the glue lines, where I sanded down a divot maybe 1/4" or so. It could have been sanding to match the existing twist, or it could have been me going crazy with the sander. My original plan was to do some surface prep, apply waterlox, and call it a day. But I need to do something about this patch. I don't need it to be perfect, but this is too much- some of my glasses can't sit there without looking like they're going to fall over. I've come up with a couple of ideas:

1) route out a shape and inlay a "brand" (or a giant bowtie)

2) fill it with clear epoxy to make it sort of flat, finish with waterlox, hope that it's not too noticeable

3) Hog off up to 1/4+" over the entire top to make it flat (Not really an option, since the top is only about 1" at its thickest right now, and the bottom is very uneven anyway)

4) Hand plane down the area to make it seem less noticeable (not excited about this, since the rest of the top is already flat enough)

I'm leaning towards #1 or 2, but I want to know: has anyone tried clear epoxy to fill a defect like that (especially paired with waterlox/black walnut), and if so, did it look okay?

[Doug Garson]

Do you have some left over offcuts from the top? Could you duplicate the defect using that material and try the clear epoxy repair on it?

[Andrew Hughes]

Probably should leave there as a reminder to not force together wood when gluing up panels.
Sorry to be blunt some things just cannot be fixed.

[Justin Choi]

Do you have some left over offcuts from the top? Could you duplicate the defect using that material and try the clear epoxy repair on it?

Negative. Most of the waste got put into other smaller glue ups that are doing well. But I do have some curly walnut from a similar bath that warped way too far out of flat that I can mess with... I might try that option!


Probably should leave there as a reminder to not force together wood when gluing up panels.
Sorry to be blunt some things just cannot be fixed.

Duly noted. I think at its worst, I had maybe 1" of bowing between some panels across 5'. I split it across both sides to take out some of the stress. Most of the tolerances were <0.5" across 5'. The thing that doesn't make sense is that this divot is 5-6" in from the edge, and if memory serves, I inset my biscuits about 6" from the edges and every 10". So if there's a biscuit there, it somehow made the twisting worse? I could be thinking about it wrong too. I haven't seen this table for a month+ while it was on a moving truck/in storage.

Also, somehow I posted this in powertools instead of projects. Can a mod move it to the right forum?

[Brian Holcombe]

When a warped board is the center connection it’s warpage is amplified throughout the remainder of the glue up.