I just finished turning a pen in Blakely's Redgum, which finishes beautifully, but is very often riddled with gum veins and wormholes. After turning, this pen still had a small crack/hole in one of the blanks which went right through to the tube, so I decided to try filling it with some brass powder a mate had given me. I just trickled it into the hole, gently soaked it with thin CA, and dusted some more powder on top before the glue set. After a few minutes, I sanded off the excess, then finished the barrel normally with EEE and Shellawax Glow.

I was really impressed with the result - the EEE polished the brass infill so that it looked like a little vein of gold in the wood, and the Shellawax sealed it nicely. It really set off the finished pen, and contrasted well with the black fittings I had used. (Sorry - I did take a piccy with my daughter's camera, but she took both camera and pen, made as a present for her hosts, off on a trip to Queensland before I could download the image.) Corbs recently did something similar with crushed turquoise, and that was also very effective.

I will definitely use the technique again, but only with small blemishes - it would be very easy to overdo it.