Thread: How would you fix this wood?

Grain continuity would look odd with a large cut and drawer fronts close together. It looks like the central hole is close to dead centre. I'd put a single cut there, and dress the edges slightly as needed. Or, let the larger cut size match the gap in the drawer fronts (if that's your design) so that the eye provides grain continuity across the gap.

Usually best to make such "defects" into design features, as they're most difficult to hide. Consider something like filling with a contrasting material, like brass powder or coffee grounds in epoxy or CA. Quite popular with the woodturning crowd.

Joe

Derek
I'd fill the cracks & c. with tinted epoxy to look a bit like gum veining.
To tint the epoxy I'd use a mixture of ochres (fine clay and the like) aiming for a deep purple–black or a orange–red–black
Add the tint to the darker part of the epoxy before mixing in the lighter coloured part.
I've had good success with 5 minute araldite

depending on your design I'd very seriously consider cutting out the centre of the knot.


cheers
ian

Never tried tinted epoxy but I've used straight black wood filler a couple of times. Even on light woods it still seems to look natural(ish). I think I may have got the tip from a magazine. Dodgy pic of a small mango box (holes in the feature filled with black) I made for my sister attached.

Derek,
Depends a bit on your overall design. If it's a completely novel design, it's up to you to decide how 'wild' you want the parts to look. If it's meant to imitate something from a more staid era, a lot of tidying-up would be called for, I venture.

It certainly is a 'wild' piece - would have headed straight for the throwout bin 60 years ago! I like wild grain myself, particularly in cedar (it's pretty featureless, most of the time) but I prefer them sound - there just isn't anything you can do with a semi-loose knot that wouldn't look like a patch-up job (aka "feature" ). Also, when using bits like that, unless you can split it and bookmatch, you end up with grain patterns that draw the eye all over the place, which makes me feel uncomfortable (Mr. Krenov doesn't like it, either!) Bookmatching, if it were possible, would balance it and settle things down.

I know you don't see a heck of a lot of Toona over there, but I think I'd be putting that bit aside for a couple of panels, or the like, and fossicking further for a piece that will take the slings & arrows of life as drawer fronts.......

Cheers,
IW

Originally Posted by IanW

that will take the slings & arrows of life as drawer fronts.......

Derek, Those are a real pretty couple of pieces that look familiar - Misan Timber maybe ? While I think that coloured epoxy would do the job well to fill in existing holes that IanW has hit the nail on the head with the issue that draw fronts do have to take a few more knocks than usual. The chances of subsequent cracks and breaks are low but having the cracks on the edges are a concern. If you absolutely wanted to do it I would set up an epoxy bath that allowed you to impregnate the relevant halves of the affected boards with epoxy and then work it back from there, ie a lot of work and a fair bit of cost.

Or a cock bead around the drawer front should help protect the edges, might keep the splits from opening up over time.

Tex

I've had some success using clear casting resin. I like it because you can see into the void and there's often a bit of detail in there that looks interesting. This is really highlighted on gum veins in lighter timbers like blackbutt.

However I've only ever used boards like that for panels in F&P doors etc.

Originally Posted by IanW

It certainly is a 'wild' piece - would have headed straight for the throwout bin 60 years ago! I like wild grain myself, particularly in cedar (it's pretty featureless, most of the time) but I prefer them sound - there just isn't anything you can do with a semi-loose knot that wouldn't look like a patch-up job (aka "feature" ). Also, when using bits like that, unless you can split it and bookmatch, you end up with grain patterns that draw the eye all over the place, which makes me feel uncomfortable (Mr. Krenov doesn't like it, either!) Bookmatching, if it were possible, would balance it and settle things down.

Sage words indeed! (except for the 60 years bit, which I think is more like 20!)

I agree that the eye is being drawn all over the place. For that reason, I'd think about doing something even more radical to break up the grain, perhaps by creating a panelled grid across the entire face, and mixing the panels. What if, for example the two drawer faces were each divided into four squares, which would give you a finished panel two squares high by four squares wide? I'd use a similar coloured timber for the mullions, there's already enough going on in the grain!

Cheers,

P

I'd go for casting resin, either clear or with a bit of dark pigment in it. Or, you could make it a feature using blue or some other bright coloured pigment.

Cover it with a decorative marquerty fan(mirrored on the lower draw face)then add some banding around the draw faces to frame it in.

I would leave the wood to speak for itself as much as possible: the grain would be the dominant feature of any piece made from this, so don't raise the noise level by adding too much in the way of grids, panels, coloured filler or whatnot. I would fill the grain holes with clear casting resin (which will look black from a distance, or transparent close up depending on the light and the shape of the void). Then I'd cut the wood so the top drawer is shallower than the bottom one, and the eye of the knot is wholly within the lower piece. Rotate the wood 180 degrees to get whichever orientation you prefer. I would not remove a slice from the middle, but try to maintain grain continuity across the two drawer fronts.

Maybe you could use it as a core, and put face veneers of MDF over it?

P

That reminds me of a Leunig cartoon. There's a guy with a crow bar prising boards off the top of a dining table he has obviously just picked up from a second hand store. "Hey, wow," he says "there's genuine 50's spangled laminex underneath these boards!"

No, I don't get it either....

I think zenwood has nailed it...

A bit more info regarding my intents.

The board is to provide two drawer fronts and these will be stacked vertically. I was thinking of a divider in the form of framework - overall my desire is to maintain the flowing lines of the existing grain. The remainder of the wood is Jarrah, which will compliment the red tones in this board. The drawers are the only other wood, so the wild grain is intended to stand out as a display. (yes, Bob, the RC is from Misan).

The design is a Krenov-type unit but with a set of two stacked drawers replacing the usual cabinet on the base.

If it were not for the fact that the fissues might end up at the edges of the board, I would just retain them as a feature. However I fear that they may cause structural problems so need to stabilize them - super glue or fill with epoxy.

I have used black epoxy before, but I think that this would be out of place here. So either I must blend it in (colour it to look natural) or leave the fissues in (but stabilized).

The alternatives are 4 drawers with two on the left side being narrower than the two on the right side. This way I can cut out the fissues - but I hate to loose the grain. Or I can have two drawers of unequal height, the narrower at the top, but the knot is going to be hard to disguise - one idea is to place a knob there.

Regards from Perth

Derek