Burns in huon

[Tisorp]

I seek advice regarding the most appropriate means of dealing with defects in a piece of huon pine which I would like to use as a side table. The wood concerned was burnt while lying around in the forest.
The piece I have has two burns ..
Attachment 133840..........
The ultimate finish will be shellac.
The oval burn I intend to leave as is.
The burn in the knot Attachment 133837goes right through the slab and there are a couple of through and through splits surrounding the knot.
Options I have considered include:
1. Leave as is.
2 Fill hole and splits with West System epoxy (uncoloured, black, brown or other.)
3. Same as 2 but different epoxy. (Are others less bubble prone?)
4. Fill with epoxy/huon dust mixture or other confected filler
5. Fill with Timbermate wood putty.

I would appreciate opinion and advice of forum members.

Cheers, Jeff

[pjt]

Hi Tisorp,
Could be a number of ways to fix, couple of things which would lead me on what to do....
How thick is the piece/s? Will it be seen? Do I want to try and hide it as much as poss or make a feature out of it? How solid is the knot?What diameter is the knot?

I think from the pic tho because of the burn I would remove all of the knot out to the splits
There are knot hole repair cutters upto about 50mm from Felder $400 to 500 tho, also plug cutter sets upto 30mm from Carbatec, probably the best option for a hide as much as poss option.
Next might be to still cut out the knot but with hole a forstner style cutter and then shape a plug by other means,

something like this....
Attachment 133847Attachment 133846

This was a loose knot that I pushed out cleaned up the edge (not too fussy) then shaped a ~ 100mm long long grain plug, shaped to suit hole with a chisel, trial and error, tap in with a hammer then remove and shave off the high spots until happy with fit, then glued in with coloured epoxy. It shows end grain but if u wanted long grain to show u would have to cut plug to suit (short piece off the end of a board).

These pics are of some blackwood bench tops where I completely filled the holes with coloured epoxy
Attachment 133858Attachment 133859

The minimum amount of work is just fill with a coloured epoxy, there are some wood repair products that claim to harden rotting/decaying timber, no idea how effective they are, might work on the burn to stabilize it, then fill the cracks....I think with as close a coloured epoxy as u can tint, some use super glue to stabilize dodgy wood.

Might be a few options to ponder...

Pete

[corbs]

What about a slightly amber tinted resin fill and put in a small realistic insect and tell people it's a fossel encased in the wood. You could also go on about the age of the wood using the growth rings... nice little conversation piece

[Tisorp]

Thank you to pjt and corbs for your replies.
The ´knot burn`is about 3cm diameter and about 28mm deep. It will certainly be very visible in the finished piece.
I would prefer to make it as ´natural looking` as possible but do not want to simply leave a hole.
My intention is to try to ´fake up`a knot to fill the void but am quite uncertain as to the best way to do this and am concerned I may irrreversibly spoil the piece if I get it wrong.My experience with epoxy is minimal and thus far plagued by bubbles persisting despite my vigilant pricking.
I am in the process of trialling various knot surrogates with combinations of putties, epoxies, wood particles and glue but would welcome any advice anyone is prepared to give.

The insect in amber does not appeal. Someone of my acqaintance would certainly notice that the beast I chose to encase was not indigenous to western Tasmania. The idea of cutting out the entire knot and attempting to fill the defect with an infill is unlikely, in my hands to resultin a ´natural` look. I suspect I would make a mess with such an approach.
I´ll persist with the ersatz knot approach for the time being but that too may well end up a mess. The learning curve is steep.

Cheers, Jeff

[pjt]

OK ,
next is to determine if the burnt bit of the knot is staying or to be removed, I don't know if a burnt bit like u have can be made stable enuff with "a" product, I think it has to go, this means drill it out/dig it out remove as much of the loose crumbly stuff until u get back to solid clean wood, from there as I see u ether fill up the void with a tinted mix of epoxy or try and make up a plug of huon and then glue that in.

For more info I'd do a search of the forums (plugging/filling cracks voids repairs) plenty of reading I'm sure.

Groggy ? in the work bench forum did some repairs in some timber for his workbench, looked quite good, might be useful

In Wood Review there was a little article about repairing cracks and the like using tinted techniglue part a&b, if I remember right u can get a filler to bulk it out for big holes


Pete