Dan Gaylin
06-03-2021, 10:05 AM
Hi folks,
I'm trying to do something that I thought would be easy but is proving challenging. I have used a straight sided plug cutter to cut some 0.75" long and 1.25" diameter plugs with face grain on the ends (so end grain along the sides) out of hard maple. I am using a Forstner bit to drill 0.75" deep and 1.25" diameter holes in a 10" diameter, 4" thick round bowl blank made of walnut. The holes are equally spaced around the circumference of the blank. I want to glue the maple plugs into the holes in the walnut bowl blank and then turn it. So the idea is that once turned, I will have a ring of contrasting maple circles in the walnut bowl. I am using Titebond II glue
I have had two failures so far: first time, I didn't make the plugs deep enough AND I didn't apply sizing (watered down glue mixture) to the the end grain sides of the plugs: result the plugs got too thin too fast and the glue joints failed and they fell out of the sides of the bowl.
My second attempt was to use a Forstner bit that was 1/16" bigger diameter than the plugs. This resulted in holes that were just too big in diameter, and the glue lines would have looked terrible, even if the Titebond would have filled the gap effectively, which I doubt.
So now I went back to the same sized Forstner bit, and have "sized" the plugs, but because the sizing has made the wood swell, there's no way the longer plugs will fit into the holes. So my thinking is that I will use something to find the center of each plug, insert a 1/4" dowel into the plug ends, mount each plug on my drill press and use some course sandpaper to slightly reduce the diameter and THEN apply sizing and hope they fit in the holes.
But I am getting tired of failed attempts and so thought I would see if the more expert folks here think this is a fool's mission....or if you have other ideas about how to accomplish this.
Thanks as always!
--dan
I'm trying to do something that I thought would be easy but is proving challenging. I have used a straight sided plug cutter to cut some 0.75" long and 1.25" diameter plugs with face grain on the ends (so end grain along the sides) out of hard maple. I am using a Forstner bit to drill 0.75" deep and 1.25" diameter holes in a 10" diameter, 4" thick round bowl blank made of walnut. The holes are equally spaced around the circumference of the blank. I want to glue the maple plugs into the holes in the walnut bowl blank and then turn it. So the idea is that once turned, I will have a ring of contrasting maple circles in the walnut bowl. I am using Titebond II glue
I have had two failures so far: first time, I didn't make the plugs deep enough AND I didn't apply sizing (watered down glue mixture) to the the end grain sides of the plugs: result the plugs got too thin too fast and the glue joints failed and they fell out of the sides of the bowl.
My second attempt was to use a Forstner bit that was 1/16" bigger diameter than the plugs. This resulted in holes that were just too big in diameter, and the glue lines would have looked terrible, even if the Titebond would have filled the gap effectively, which I doubt.
So now I went back to the same sized Forstner bit, and have "sized" the plugs, but because the sizing has made the wood swell, there's no way the longer plugs will fit into the holes. So my thinking is that I will use something to find the center of each plug, insert a 1/4" dowel into the plug ends, mount each plug on my drill press and use some course sandpaper to slightly reduce the diameter and THEN apply sizing and hope they fit in the holes.
But I am getting tired of failed attempts and so thought I would see if the more expert folks here think this is a fool's mission....or if you have other ideas about how to accomplish this.
Thanks as always!
--dan