On Thu, 09 Jun 2005 03:54:37 -0400, Leo Van Der Loo
wrote:

Hi P

I just finished a 15" wormy spalted silver maple shallow bowl, there are
enough smaller and larger holes in there to make it interesting, don't
know how yours is but I know that my bowl is definitely not a salad
bowl, would make a good fruit bowl, lots of air circulation G.

It's just a little one, as I just have a little lathe! It's got a
good sprinkling of holes that don't go all the way through the wood,
and are about the size of pencil lead. It is an interesting hunk of
maple, because there is simply so much going on with it- spalting,
wormholes and various areas that are discolored. Kind of looks like a
moth-eaten piece of desert camoflage, and it's dry as a bone, without
being punky. Had a big crack down one side, but that was pretty easy
to work around- I just cut it in half along the crack, and the problem
was gone.

Point is if there are only a few holes, maybe fill them, if there are a
lot make it an attribute, whomever wants the bowl certainly knows the
holes are there and they will be able to keep or get them clean, blow or
rinse clean comes to mind, filling the holes with clear plastic does not
do it for me.

Ah, but they're for me- and I'm lazy when it comes to cleaning things
like that!

A 2 part epoxy polymer can be use to fill, but it won't be easy to do on
a bowl form, unless you fill the whole bowl.
Lee Valley sells some, but I have no experience with it though.

Hmm. I see everyone just likes wormholes! The main problem that
I'm having is that in the last bowl I turned from the same wood, the
paste wax I used to finish it off filled part of the holes, and
remained as rather unsightly amber-colored blobs that I'm going to
have to pick out with a pipe cleaner or something. Maybe I can melt
'em out with a hair dryer, and save myself some work- it's got shellac
underneith, so the wax wasn't really strictly necessary anyhow.

Maybe it really isn't an issue- the wood was free, after all, so it's
not going to hurt anything to leave the holes open for now, and see
how they look in a year or two. I might try out the epoxy, but I just
have this feeling that it'd just pop out once the humidity drops.

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone!