Wood non-idealities

[Steven Mikes]

A few blemishes on the table legs I shaped.
May be hard to tell in the photo but one leg is from a different board and the color doesn't quite look the same.

I have some tearout near a knot, and there are some small holes (insect bored?) in one. Are there fixed for these, or should I just ignore them and move on?

[David Eisenhauer]

Sort of kind of depends on what quality table you are wanting to result from your efforts. If the table were for my own use in my home, I would carefully scrape the tear out, ignore the insect holes and replace the board on the left in photo 2 of 3 with one that better matched the grain the other three legs.

[Tom Bender]

Some days woodworking is all about repairs.

One fix is to turn the legs to show the best surfaces

Test your finish schedule on some scraps to see how it's going to look. That will help you decide what to fix.

You might plug the holes by driving in wooden toothpicks (may have to drill first)

[Doug Hepler]

Steven,

This is a very common issue, one which I have struggled with in the past. Here is where I came down:

If this piece is for your own home, then please yourself, but labor patiently and persistently until you do please yourself. If the mismatched board annoys you, replace it. The only standard is perfection, and we never reach it since it is an idea and furniture is real. The closer we come to perfection, the more our work may look like it came from a factory. So, some flaws are esthetically pleasing and some are not. Only you can decide. You might as well start to resolve this for yourself, or it will nag you for every piece of furniture.

Doug

[Kevin Perez]

Sort of kind of depends on what quality table you are wanting to result from your efforts. If the table were for my own use in my home, I would carefully scrape the tear out, ignore the insect holes and replace the board on the left in photo 2 of 3 with one that better matched the grain the other three legs.

Ditto. The insect holes give it character. The wood mismatch is the kind of think that would bug me down the road. That said, you need to figure out what bugs you and address those things.

[Brandon Speaks]

Ditto. The insect holes give it character. The wood mismatch is the kind of think that would bug me down the road. That said, you need to figure out what bugs you and address those things.

This is my thought as well. I like the character but would change the mismatch.

[Chuck Nickerson]

The growth ring differences among the legs is because the 1st and 4th legs are not rift-sawn.
If all your legs are from a from rift-sawn portion of the board this problem goes way.

[Steven Mikes]

Thanks all for the advice! I planed over the tearout with a high angle smoother and managed to clean it up pretty nicely. The holes I won't bother with, they are practically unnoticeable from more than a few inches away anyway. The color/pattern differences in the legs does bother me somewhat, but I'm also worried that if I go out and buy a new board (I don't have any remaining of sufficient thickness) I will just run into the same problem...

[Bill McDermott]

The bug holes and pitch pockets are OK for a lot of situations. But t

he grain on the leg farthest to the left is pretty wacky for a leg. If it doesn't bother you - cool. Maybe you can rotate it and put it in the back or away from view. The same idea might help with the mismatch you are seeing.

Paint or really dark stain fixes things like this.