Finishing wormy maple - help needed

[Matt Day]

Hello,

I've recently glued up my top for a table which is ~ 3' x 8' and made out of wormy maple. Some of the boards are fabulous in character, and some of them have some graying that some feel is a drawback of this particular wood. I don't mind it, but if I wanted to, is there any way to get rid of it or at least lessen the hue? Would bleech do crazy things to it? I believe the graying is from moisture when the tree was growing.

Also, being wormy maple, there are small holes in the wood. Is there anything I should do to either fill or seal these?

I'd like to keep the finish natural, but give it a somewhat glossy appearance. Would Boiled Linseed Oil do the trick?

Thanks!

P.S. I haven't decided if I'm going to do breadboard ends yet, but I might use some walnut on the ends to compliment the darker parts of the wormy. I have to clean the walnut up and see how it looks next to it.

[Quinn McCarthy]

Could you fill the holes with clear boat epoxy? Like West Systems maybe. I have some wormy butternut I have been saving for a project but I haven't fooled around with filling the holes yet. But that is what I am going to try. Mainly because I have used it on other projects and I have some around. http://www.westsystem.com/ The only question I would have is all of the thickeners I have seen add color to the epoxy so you may have to wait until it hardens a bit before you start filling the holes so it don't just soak into the wood.

[Matt Day]

I talked to a friend of mine I trust, and I'm going to use Lee Valley's Varnish Oil and not do anything special to the worm holes. Basically I'll sand to 220 w/ a ROS, then hand sand from 150 to 220, seal the pores w/ a 2 rounds of a coat of varnish w/ excess wiped off followed by sanding at 320 for the first round and 400 for #2, then 3 more coats w/ burnishing included and 400 when dry.

[Curtis Farrance]

Could you fill the holes with clear boat epoxy? Like West Systems maybe. I have some wormy butternut I have been saving for a project but I haven't fooled around with filling the holes yet. But that is what I am going to try. Mainly because I have used it on other projects and I have some around. http://www.westsystem.com/ The only question I would have is all of the thickeners I have seen add color to the epoxy so you may have to wait until it hardens a bit before you start filling the holes so it don't just soak into the wood.
i frequently use system 3's 5 minute epoxy to fill worm holes in table tops. it's fairly thick so just use a plastic filler spatula to trowel some down in the hole. it will harden colorless/translucent and because i usually apply a multilayer finish (typically dye--waxless shellac as a sealer--glaze and film forming topcoat) the worm hole and it's discoloration becomes another visual feature like figure and grain. btw, you can avoid having the area around the hole blotched by the epoxy by doing the filling before starting to sand. by the time you run through the grits you will have cut through the epoxy on the surface of the wood.

[Marty Schlosser]

I recently made a harvest table using wormy butternut that my client supplied. The wood had some sentimentality associated with it, and he really insisted me using it, despite the need to laminate the mostly 4/4 thick, badly twisted condition of the majority of the wood. I digress...

After sanding the piece and applying two coats (sanding between each) of blonde shellac, I filled the worm holes and cracks around knots and such blemishes with WEST epoxy I dyes with ColorFX burnt amber liquid dye concentrate. The rationale, in my mind at least, for first shellacing the piece was to ensure the epoxy didn't readily adhere to any open pores in the area of the holes and cracks I had wished to highlight, which I felt would spoil the effect. However, after I had the tabletop thickness sanded at a shop that had a large unit, so much material was removed that it largely machined off the majority of the holes I had filled and exposed new ones. The cracks, though, because they went deeper, looked great, so I knew then that highlighting the defects was the right thing to do with this piece.

I was leery however, of using epoxy to fill the rest of the holes, as the wood was quite soft and I was uncomfortable using something as hard as epoxy to fill holes and voids. I envisioned ending out with all sorts of dips and such as a result to attempting to work the excess fill with hand scrapers, hand planes and hand-held sanders, as I wasn't interested in going back to the thickness sander again (expense, time to transport to other shop, etc.).

My solution was to use Elmer's carpenter's wood filler (available through Home Depot and others) that I thinned with water to the consistency of peanut butter. I again elected to first apply two coats of shellac, as the thickness sander had largely exposed fresh wood.

It worked beautifully. I achieved the desired effect and the dyed filler scraped and sanded off very nicely. The piece then received 2 more coats of blonde shellac, followed by topocating. For the top I used polyurethane and the skirting and legs received lacquer.

I have a Fuji Q4 Pro HVLP spray system, that I used in applying all the waterborne shellac, polyurethane and lacquer.

Hope this helps.

Marty from Ottawa

[Jim Tobias]

Matt,
I built our kitchen table out of wormy chestnut and left the holes (plenty of them) as they were. They, of course, got sealed (not filled) as I applied finish. Danish oil for bringing out colors and topcoated with satin poly for toughness (KITCHEN TABLE). We have eaten many meals (including our 6 grandkids -all under the age of 7) and the holes have never trapped food. Just my experience.

Jim