On 05/03/2018 19:42, Chris Green wrote:
John Rumm wrote:
On 05/03/2018 18:56, Chris Green wrote:
I have some toy wooden bricks that I want to repair, they are fairly
intricate in shape as they have a keyway thats slots onto a vertical
T-shaped key.

I can get them basically back together by gluing but that leaves some
dents (the dog chewed them!) and splits that need filling.

So what would people suggest for finishing the repairs (and/or some of
the initial gluing), am I after a glue that can fill cracks or am I
after wood filler (or some other sort of filler)?

I'm concerned that wood filler may not adhere well enough on the
fairly small dents and splits. On the other hand I can't find any glue
that seems to have the properties I need. PVA glues mostly
specifically say that the joints need to be tight and well fitting,
polyurethane glues expand and fill gaps but I don't see it being easy
to use them to fill and smooth cracks. Would I be better off using a
silicone sealant of some sort? The bricks are painted so the colour
and texture of the result don't matter too much.

Any ideas would be most welcome.

Use a PVA/Aliphatic resin glue to stick em back together, and then use a
2 part wood filler (like the Ronseal[1] one) to fill the dents. Lightly
sad the filler flush when done.

{1] or if you don't care about it being wood coloured then plastic
padding / car body filler, or just an epoxy with filler in it.

I was wondering if epoxy might do for both gluing and filling, though
I don't like working with it, sticky stuff (which I suppose is the
idea).

Some wooden toys (Brio for example) have a slightly oily feeling
surface. I'm not sure if that is from the timber used, or a treatment. I
suspect that epoxy might glue these better than "normal" wood glue.
Epoxy will also fill the dents but will be a bit visible. You will
probably get a better finish by using an inert filler in the epoxy,
filling oversize and then sanding down with wet and dry. Car body filler
will be easier than messing around with epoxy though. I certainly
wouldn't use silicone.