Filling a burl hole
Today I was working with a walnut burl piece, about 11″x15″x0.355″, give or take 0.0015″. Unfortunately, it had a big old hole in it.
There’s a few ways to deal with such a thing. In the past, I’ve used liquid wood. This time, I decided to use epoxy–no colorant, just clear.
I discovered an interesting tradeoff, which of course I have to share with you. It turns out that if you have a hole that goes all the way through the board, exoxy (even the thick stuff) will drain right through to the other side. No surprise. The solution? Put a piece of tape on the back side.
But not so fast! It turns out that if you do that, there’s no where for the air trapped in the hole to go, and you wind up with a big bubble at the bottom of the hole.
The solution? Cover the bottom with tape, but make a pinhole. When epoxy starts to drip out, cover the pinhole with a second piece of tape.
Oh, and watch out for the epoxy fumes. They’re relatively odorless, but quite toxic. Another good reason to buy Darth Vader’s dust mask.
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