Sawdust mixed with wood glue or epoxy as filler?

[chris del]

I have a project that requires a little bit of filling. I have some very fine dust that I plan on mixing with wood glue or clear epoxy. I will use it to fill the voids then apply Light walnut Danish oil, then paste wax as a finish.
My question is: are the areas that I filled going to stick out like a sore thumb due to the fact that they wont absorbe any of the Danish oil?

Is there a better way to do this?

[Jim Becker]

Yes, they are going to be very visible...the glue will not absorb the oil like the wood will. Try to fill all the gaps that you can with slivers of wood in the same grain orientation as the piece you are working with. Those will be invisible or nearly so. Really small slivers sometimes don't need glue, either, as the finish will hold them in. For small voids, consider filling them after you are into your finishing process so you can use colored filler that is close to what you need (slightly darker or lighter, depending on the species) and then sealed in with your final top coat(s). These methods will result in the most "invisible" fixes you can do.

[Jamie Buxton]

If you need to make wood filler with wood dust, use sanding dust, not saw dust. The wood particles are much smaller, and they pack much better into the hole. I use lacquer with the dust to make a paste. I use the sanding dust from the project, so that the color match is often okay. However, the filler has no grain, so it does stick out in that way.

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Epoxy would be the best to use as a filler if the void is of any size. When wood glue dries the moisture loss makes it shrink a lot and may require two or even more "hits". And as has been said, use sanding dust - using sawdust can make it look like particle board. The best thing, as in all finishing, would be to mix some and see how it compares with the finish applied to a scrap. For some woods it's acceptable and with some it stands out like a sore thumb.

[chris del]

Thanks for the advise gentleman.
After a little expermentation I came up with a solution that worked. Keep in mind that the areas to be filled were very, very small.

My solution was to get some very fine dust and mix with a little bit of the Danish oil to make a paste. I then mixed this paste with a 2 part, 5 minute epoxy and filled the voids. Then sanded. A coat of danish oil over top looks perfact.

[Steven Wilson]

Another way is to mix your sanding dust with hide glue and use that paste to fill the void. Hide glue will accepts stains and finishes well.