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  1. #1
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    Default Fine cracks in wenge timber

    On my last trip to Sydeny a few years ago, I picked up a block of wenge 200 x 200 x 25 which looked spectacular. I had never seen this timber before, and thougth it would make a good box lid. So the other day I resawed two pieces of veneer 3 mm thick off it, and also blunted the bandsaw blade while at it.

    I epoxy glued these to either side of a 6mmMDF substrate, put it in a mechanical press for over 12 hours

    The end result was a veneered board full of tiny cracks, as shown on the attached photos.

    I mixed some black powder in the epoxy and smothered one side of the board, left it for 24 hours, and sanded it off, but the cracks were still there after I sanded it. Apparently the cracks are deep and very fine, and my epoxy did not reach all the way through

    Can anyone please suggest a way forward? My current inclination is to toss the lid away.


    P1710030 (Large).jpg P1710032 (Large).jpg P1710035 (Large).jpg P1710037 (Large).jpg
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    regards,

    Dengy

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  3. #2
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    I have only played with Wenge while making pens. I have also had the same thing happen and I ended up adding some CA glue to fill the cracks.

    That being said my success with CA has not always been good when finishing the pens and I have just left the later ones with a coat of poly. The wife did one pen with a similar finish and it has lasted for years.

  4. #3
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    Thanks Christos.
    I just checked the remainder of the block, and both the flat 200 x 200 surfaces are covered in hundreds of these longitudinal cracks, running with the grain

    So did your wife use a wipe on poly finish?
    regards,

    Dengy

  5. #4
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    The best I can suggest is to fill them with Wattyl grain filler tinted black (pigment should be available from art shops). Put some of the mixture on the surface, then rub it in with a scrunched ball of hessian, making sure that it goes into the cracks. Leave it for 24 hours before sanding & cleaning the excess off the surface. Then finish as normal.
    Do the cracks go all the way through the wenge? If so, perhaps using tinted epoxy glue that will squeeze through is the way to go. May be worth a try in future - if it fails you can still use the grain filler.

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  6. #5
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    Thanks Alex, will give the black tinted epoxy another go, this time with a foam roller pushing the epoxy well down into the cracks
    regards,

    Dengy

  7. #6
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    Dengue, I needed to fill a small gap on the underneath side of a box with a Wenge base (don't ask why I used wenge for an unseen part) anyway, I sanded a spare piece of wenge onto a piece of paper and collected the dust, then mixed with thick CA glue (longer working time than thin CA) and Filled the gap.

  8. #7
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    Epoxy maybe too viscous to flow into those "cracks."
    I'll guess they are the natural chains of vessel elements, the 'pores' in the wood.
    Question: with or without a magnifying glass, can you see these as openings in the end grain (transverse plane?)

    There's a paste pore filler which is used for red oak woods (Quercus rubra) that is sanded back before any further finishing is done.

  9. #8
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    They are natural pores in the grain.

    Throw it away because of the pores? ARE YOU CRAZY!

  10. #9
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    There's a paste pore filler which is used for red oak woods
    That sounds like what we call wood grain filler. Usually used on open grained timbers that are to be French polished.
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  11. #10
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    I don't think a roller would do much to push any product in to the grain. You need to work the filler across the grain with something like the aforementioned hessian. There are grain filling sanding sealers available too, like this - https://www.bunnings.com.au/feast-wa...ealer_p1564778

  12. #11
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    Probably is pretty much the same thing.
    Here, it's used to seal red oak flooring before varnish.
    You soon begin to have nightmares about the floor sander.
    Just a belt sander on steroids.

    Speaking of which, do you guys run belt sander drag races at your wood shows?

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    Dengue why not use Shellac and filler as in French Polishing grain filling? Most finishes will go over shellac with no issues. The finish you plan to use will also dictate what options are available to you, if using a NC lacquer then use the NC sanding sealer.
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  14. #13
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    Just to clarify, when I mentioned using tinted epoxy glue, I was referring to using something like Techniglue to stick the veneer to the substrate. There's a good chance that it would squeeze through the cracks. That may or not be a good thing, but it's probably worth trying.
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  15. #14
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    Dengy

    What I think you have are stress cracks -- possibly because your board contains reaction wood.
    You should be able to fill the cracks with tinted epoxy, but the epoxy you use will need to be very runny -- which might be a challenge in itself.

    my GUESS is that the cracks could also be filled if you use a burnishing oil finish, but the resulting surface could look muddy because there will be black where there should be brown and vice versa.
    regards from Alberta, Canada

    ian

  16. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by 44Ronin View Post
    They are natural pores in the grain.

    Throw it away because of the pores? ARE YOU CRAZY!
    This.

    Wenge is an open-grained timber. That's what it looks like.

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