Help with MIL present! What to do with these cracks?

[Patrick Taylor]

I had a cherry burl that was poorly roughed, and cracked a bit when drying (it was one of my first roughings). Today I turned NE bowl from it, expecting the cracks to be present. What I didn't expect was the terrible fibrous texture inside the crack. I was thinking of filling it with an inlay, but filled or not, the cracks have to be cleaned out.

How should I clean out these cracks? Any suggestions? Carve them out? Sandpaper on a toothpick? Dremel? (sounds potentially disastrous...)

Thanks in advance. This is supposed to be a mother's day gift for the MIL, so you can see the fear in my eyes... :eek:

[Glenn Hodges]

Patrick, tough luck happens in this craft often. One way to take care of the cracks is to fill them with something which appeals to you and looks good on the piece you are working with. I just finished filling some cracks on a mullberry natural edge with fine malachite dust. The very fine (small) cracks would only take the dust which I then saturated with thin CA glue. I have used various other stuff to fill cracks like chaulk, coal, coffee, etc. Sometimes I have had to widen the crack when the crack was so fibrous like yours. You can do more than just widen the crack, you can incorporate the crack into a figure like a leaf, butterfly, tree, etc. Have fun, and good luck. Post a picture of what you end up doing. BTW I use CA, and epoxy as a mediums to hold the filler.

[Chris Barton]

Not what your gonna want to hear, fireplace or your "example" shelf. I keep a shelf of things I screwed up on as examples of what not to do. I'm adding on more shelves as we speak...

[Ralph Lindberg]

Like Glenn I fill with CA or epoxy (usually poly). I do add dye, usually black powered aniline dye (from CSUSA).

It also works great for voids

[Kevin McPeek]

Good ol' coffee grounds ought to do the trick. Pack the cracks with them and then drizzle some thin CA on it.

[Patrick Taylor]

I haven't done CA with chalk or coffee grounds before, but I'm aware of the technique. Question: if I have a crack that goes through, should I tape the backside before filling?

[Neal Addy]

Those aren't cracks, they're character!

[Andy Hoyt]

Looks like "shake" to me. Put on a flak jacket.

[Bill Wyko]

Go on line and look up www.inlaceonline.com (http://www.inlaceonline.com) and get some Turquoise and superglue it in the cracks and re-turn it. It'll be beautiful. It's what I use on my segmented work.:)

[Curt Fuller]

That's too nice of a piece of wood to give up on. All the previously mentioned fillers would work well or you can also get the fine sawdust from the dust collector or shop vac filter and use it as a wood tone filler. One suggestion, spray or brush on a little sanding sealer before filling the cracks. Then if the CA spills out it won't discolor the wood around the cracks.

[George Tokarev]

What I didn't expect was the terrible fibrous texture inside the crack. I was thinking of filling it with an inlay, but filled or not, the cracks have to be cleaned out.

How should I clean out these cracks? Any suggestions? Carve them out? Sandpaper on a toothpick? Dremel? (sounds potentially disastrous...)


How about taking some slabs of cherry bark, packing them in the crevice and adding a bit of CA to firm them up. Then take your coffee mill and coarse grind some more of the bark to stuff in the remaining crevices. All you need to do to pack the interlocks back is to run a knife down either side of the crack to sever them, then let the bark packing stick them back to the sides. I use a chip carving knife.

If you add bark to the glue rather than glue to the bark, you'll preserve a surface more consistent with the wood around it, and won't have to go to a surface finish to hide the glued area.

[John Shuk]

I like to take a plain tea bag and pulverize the tea a little bit finer and pack it in and use thin ca glue to harden it. I especially like the way the tea looks with cherry. It looks like the gum lines you sometimes see in cherry.

[Jonathon Spafford]

That piece is lovely and the cracks just add some character... try coffee or charcoal and fill the cracks and cover with CA like was suggested. That should add a cool contrast! Make sure to post pix when you are finished with it!

[Bernie Weishapl]

I will use Epoxy mixed with DNA to a milk like consistancy and the sanding dust to fill the cracks. Works pretty good.

[Reed Gray]

I do keep 2 containers of dust from the drum sander, one walnut, and the other cherry and other lighter woods. I have one friend who bakes his in the oven until it is the proper color. I will drizzle some thin CA in the thinner parts of the cracks, then some medium or thick on top of that. The thin stuff will wick the thicker glue all the way down into the crack. I will put the dark dust on top of that. I then do the same process from the other side. I don't like to pack the crack first because I want to make sure that the glue goes all the way through. The thicker glue doesn't penetrate as fast or as deep as the thin stuff. If the thin stuff spills, I have a rag in one hand to wipe it up. Then the stain will sand out easily. I don't use accelerators. The dust will accelerate the top, and the inside, if it is deep needs to sit for an hour or two before it is set. If you are turning it out some more, and the inside isn't set, things can get messy. I do let the dust/glue mix pile up so that it is solid above the crack being filled, then sand it down. I will only go to the trouble of filling cracks if it is a very special piece of wood. Most of the time it isn't worth all the extra time and trouble, and I don't know how long the glue will hold, a year, or 3 or 10, or ??????
robo hippy

[Patrick Taylor]

Thanks for all the great suggestions. I do like this piece of wood, so it won't go to the fireplace (yet). I used some 100 grit sandpaper folded over to clean the inside of most of the cracks (see photos). I think the cracks add interest as a "feature" but there's a great opportunity for a dramatic inlay effect, I think. I won't be re-turning it however, so hopefully sanding alone will take care of the CA and inlay material.

Thanks Bill for the Inlace link. I was thinking of using key shavings and chalk, but I might try the Inlace products. Do you use the granules?

[Curtis O. Seebeck]

A cheaper choice than the inlace granules is embossing powder. You can find it in most any hobby type shop that sells scrapbooking supplies. It is normally used for creating embosed lettering and is a fine granule that works great with CA for filling cracks and voids. They have a verdigris color that looks like turquios inlace that I use a lot in mesquite. It is available in many different colors including gold, silver, copper, and most other regular colors.