"Upscale" wrote:


"tom" wrote in message
We have just finished building a beautiful open staircase using
straight-grain, clear 3x12 fir planks. We held the staircase together
with lag bolts countersunk in 3/4" holes. I am having a hard time
finding any wood filler that comes even remotely close to the color of
fir. Any ideas on where to find such a product?

Another idea that comes to mind is buying a 3/4" plug cutter and using plugs
from the fir you have in stock. You'd be guaranteed a colour match. It may
be a better option than my previous suggestion because of the size of the
holes that need filling.

Tom, I'd strongly second this idea. My only experience is with plugs
is with cherry, and they made the hole nearly disappear. George may
have a valid concern--I've got no experience with these with fir.

Some things to think about:
1) align the grain
2) use similar wood (sapwood plug in sapwood hole, heartwood in
heartwood)
less obvious:
3) have the grain sloping the same direction for planing. Nice to take
the plug down with a block plane, but you want the end of that process
to be taking whisper-thin shavings from the plug until you get a
whisper off the surrounding wood. But it's nasty if your plane digs in
because of opposite direction in the surrounding wood.
4) Use same side of the tree, i.e, if outside of the tree is toward
you on the surrounding piece, make the outside or the tree toward you
on the plug. I've never worried about this before, but with a 3/4"
plug, it seems that it might be worth doing to make sure movement is
aligned as much as possible.

George mentioned making the plugs design features, which could work
very nicely. But that is an aesthetic decision for you to make.
Buttons with a small lip to cover any roughness of the hole cut are a
possibility as are flush or slightly protruding rounded dowels. But
given your initially expressed goal, I think the way to go is to buy a
quality plug cutter and try some plugs on scrap to see if you can get
around the issues George mentioned.
--
Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked infrequently.