Hi all,

I've been building a captain's bed for my son out of some old
reclaimed pine. Due to the limited amount of wood I was not able to
avoid having some knots at the edge of a face frame. One of them is
big and really shabby, with quite large voids. I'd like to fill it,
and I'm thinking epoxy would be the best choice. I really don't like
the look of wood filler when it gets any bigger than a BB.

Assuming you agree that epoxy is a good choice, how can I apply it?
At the edge of the board it's going to just run out, so I need to
block it while it sets. The blocking must not stick to the epoxy. I
don't have sheets of teflon, other than teflon plumbing tape. Is
there something else (like HDPE or polyethylene, which I didn't try it
yet) that will work instead? Alternatively, if I let the expoxy get
proud of the surface can I sand it down and hope to apply water based
Minwax Varathane and not see the sanding marks? In that case I can
block it with a few strips of wood and just plane/sand them away.
Actually, I'm inclined to think that's the best approach, so I may try
it on some scrap while I await more brilliant feedback from you guys.

If there's no other choice I can cut the offending chunk away and glue
in a replacement, but it'll lose a lot of character and just plain
won't look as good as I know it can.

I hope all this makes sense. Thanks for your advice.

- Owen -

On Fri, 9 Jul 2010 05:33:36 -0700 (PDT), manyirons wrote:

Hi all,

I've been building a captain's bed for my son out of some old
reclaimed pine. Due to the limited amount of wood I was not able to
avoid having some knots at the edge of a face frame. One of them is
big and really shabby, with quite large voids. I'd like to fill it,
and I'm thinking epoxy would be the best choice. I really don't like
the look of wood filler when it gets any bigger than a BB.

Assuming you agree that epoxy is a good choice, how can I apply it?
At the edge of the board it's going to just run out, so I need to
block it while it sets. The blocking must not stick to the epoxy. I
don't have sheets of teflon, other than teflon plumbing tape. Is
there something else (like HDPE or polyethylene, which I didn't try it
yet) that will work instead? Alternatively, if I let the expoxy get
proud of the surface can I sand it down and hope to apply water based
Minwax Varathane and not see the sanding marks? In that case I can
block it with a few strips of wood and just plane/sand them away.
Actually, I'm inclined to think that's the best approach, so I may try
it on some scrap while I await more brilliant feedback from you guys.

If there's no other choice I can cut the offending chunk away and glue
in a replacement, but it'll lose a lot of character and just plain
won't look as good as I know it can.

I hope all this makes sense. Thanks for your advice.

- Owen -

take a piece of scrap and rub it with wax and clamp it
over void, will pop off easily after the epoxy sets.

basilisk

On 07/09/2010 08:00 AM, basilisk wrote:
On Fri, 9 Jul 2010 05:33:36 -0700 (PDT), manyirons wrote:

Hi all,

I've been building a captain's bed for my son out of some old
reclaimed pine. Due to the limited amount of wood I was not able to
avoid having some knots at the edge of a face frame. One of them is
big and really shabby, with quite large voids. I'd like to fill it,
and I'm thinking epoxy would be the best choice. I really don't like
the look of wood filler when it gets any bigger than a BB.

Assuming you agree that epoxy is a good choice, how can I apply it?
At the edge of the board it's going to just run out, so I need to
block it while it sets. The blocking must not stick to the epoxy. I
don't have sheets of teflon, other than teflon plumbing tape. Is
there something else (like HDPE or polyethylene, which I didn't try it
yet) that will work instead? Alternatively, if I let the expoxy get
proud of the surface can I sand it down and hope to apply water based
Minwax Varathane and not see the sanding marks? In that case I can
block it with a few strips of wood and just plane/sand them away.
Actually, I'm inclined to think that's the best approach, so I may try
it on some scrap while I await more brilliant feedback from you guys.

If there's no other choice I can cut the offending chunk away and glue
in a replacement, but it'll lose a lot of character and just plain
won't look as good as I know it can.

I hope all this makes sense. Thanks for your advice.

- Owen -

take a piece of scrap and rub it with wax and clamp it
over void, will pop off easily after the epoxy sets.

basilisk

That should work, but I wonder what the remaining area around the knot hole looks like
(perpendicular to the backer board). It's likely that the epoxy will "sink in" to the wood
and NOT be proud of the surface by the time it's cured, so what I like to do is build a
"dam" around the affected area with simple latex caulk, which allows you to overfill the
area with a "lake" of epoxy and plane or sand it down after it's cured. You're going to
need some pretty fine sandpaper if you don't want to see sanding marks after you're done;
lots of guys here claim that for wood they never go finer than 220 but for epoxy I think
you're going to need at least 400 (maybe 600) or you're going to see scratches...

--
"Our beer goes through thousands of quality Czechs every day."
(From a Shiner Bock billboard I saw in Austin some years ago)
To reply, eat the taco.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbqboyee/

I've been building a captain's bed for my son out of some old
reclaimed pine. *Due to the limited amount of wood I was not able to
avoid having some knots at the edge of a face frame. *One of them is
big and really shabby, with quite large voids. *I'd like to fill it,
and I'm thinking epoxy would be the best choice. ....

Another suggestion: Cut away around the knot and patch the wood with a
scrap of the same stock. Try to match the grain as best you can. I
think that would look better than a lump of epoxy.

If your scrap pieces have knots, use those knots to fill the voids and
epoxy them into place. If you don't have knots in some scrap pieces,
maybe you could stain some scrap to "make" knots, and insert them into
the voids (epoxy into place).

I vote for the waxing suggestion, for your "framing in" of the
filler.

Sonny

On Fri, 9 Jul 2010 05:33:36 -0700 (PDT), manyirons
wrote:

If there's no other choice I can cut the offending chunk away and glue
in a replacement, but it'll lose a lot of character and just plain
won't look as good as I know it can.

You could remove the offending area and replace it with some scrap
material that the grain matches the affected area's grain. Repairs
like that are often invisible.

If you're concerned about losing some character why not create a
"Dutchman" patch for that area. One that would repair the area but
not attempt to conceal it's existence. That way you could have your
cake and eat it too.

Gordon Shumway

When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both.

On Jul 9, 8:33*am, manyirons wrote:
Hi all,

I've been building a captain's bed for my son out of some old
reclaimed pine. *Due to the limited amount of wood I was not able to
avoid having some knots at the edge of a face frame. *One of them is
big and really shabby, with quite large voids. *I'd like to fill it,
and I'm thinking epoxy would be the best choice. *I really don't like
the look of wood filler when it gets any bigger than a BB.

Assuming you agree that epoxy is a good choice, how can I apply it?
At the edge of the board it's going to just run out, so I need to
block it while it sets. *The blocking must not stick to the epoxy. *I
don't have sheets of teflon, other than teflon plumbing tape. *Is
there something else (like HDPE or polyethylene, which I didn't try it
yet) that will work instead? *Alternatively, if I let the expoxy get
proud of the surface can I sand it down and hope to apply water based
Minwax Varathane and not see the sanding marks? *In that case I can
block it with a few strips of wood and just plane/sand them away.
Actually, I'm inclined to think that's the best approach, so I may try
it on some scrap while I await more brilliant feedback from you guys.

If there's no other choice I can cut the offending chunk away and glue
in a replacement, but it'll lose a lot of character and just plain
won't look as good as I know it can.

I hope all this makes sense. *Thanks for your advice.

* - Owen -

Another way to approach this is by covering a piece of scrap with
kitchen waxed paper. This suggestion is a variation of previously
mentioned ideas.

I also like the dutchman technique. Norm has demonstrated this on
several shows and it seems to produce a satisfactory solution to the
problem.

Joe G

I hope all this makes sense. *Thanks for your advice.

* - Owen -

Epoxy sands out really well so you could just build up a dam using
tape and sand it all away later.

I like the concept of doing a patch using similar grained material. In
a very early job (16-17 years old) at a rustic furniture factory when
we had bad knots in Pine we would use a chisel them out and sand a
plug to fit and just yellow glue it in place. You would be amazed how
well it blends.

Another option is to just break out all the loose material and grind
and sand the edges smooth. I actually always like to have some little
hidden wild edge on any of the better furniture I build. And when it
is for me, I like it to be visible.

On Jul 9, 2:38*pm, "SonomaProducts.com" wrote:
I hope all this makes sense. *Thanks for your advice.

* - Owen -

Epoxy sands out really well so you could just build up a dam using
tape and sand it all away later.

I like the concept of doing a patch using similar grained material. In
a very early job (16-17 years old) at a rustic furniture factory when
we had bad knots in Pine we would use a chisel them out and sand a
plug to fit and just yellow glue it in place. You would be amazed how
well it blends.

I actually have most of the original knots still in place, but some of
them are loose and there's wild grained gaps up to half a centimetre
across near the centre plug.

Another option is to just break out all the loose material and grind
and sand the edges smooth. I actually always like to have some little
hidden wild edge on any of the better furniture I build. And when it
is for me, I like it to be visible.

I like the wax idea. I'm going to try it on some scrap and see just
how easily it pops off. I already have a few dutchmans replacing the
ugly man-made tears the contractors made when they ripped this stuff
off the walls. The natural "defect" seems more appropriate to
preserve. But I think I'll pre-seal the wood so it takes the finish
before I embed wax into the pores.

lots of guys here claim that for wood they never go finer than 220 but for epoxy I think
you're going to need at least 400 (maybe 600) or you're going to see
scratches...

I'm hoping to avoid all that by applying finish on top of the epoxy,
letting it fill in the scratches, but I've never tried that before.
Won't it work? I've seen how smooth you can make it using finer and
finer grits, but I'm hoping it's not necessary. I've got the fine
grits I need, and given the small area it's not really such a big deal
if I have to go that route. I'm also hoping to avoid a lot of
experimentation just by asking you guys for your experience, but I'll
do what I must, and learn what I will.

Thanks for the great suggestions so far. It's exactly the kind of
feedback I was hoping for!

- Owen -

*The only thing I think I
must watch out for is over sanding, since the epoxy is much harder
than the pine and it ends up a bit proud. *In this case it won't
matter, but someday it might.

With the 5-minute epoxy there's a window of time after it has set up
firm during which you can slice it off with a sharp plane blade flush
with the surrounding wood. It's one of two uses I've found for the
Lee Valley flush-trimming plane, the other being to slice off
polyurethane glue squeeze out.

JP

On 7/10/2010 7:17 AM, Jay Pique wrote:
The only thing I think I
must watch out for is over sanding, since the epoxy is much harder
than the pine and it ends up a bit proud. In this case it won't
matter, but someday it might.

With the 5-minute epoxy there's a window of time after it has set up
firm during which you can slice it off with a sharp plane blade flush
with the surrounding wood. It's one of two uses I've found for the
Lee Valley flush-trimming plane, the other being to slice off
polyurethane glue squeeze out.

JP

That's true of pretty much any epoxy, not just the 5-minute variety. BTW, most
5-minute varieties yield pretty crappy results in terms of strength and holding
power; you're better off using the slower-curing epoxies if you want the best
quality. Most commercial grade epoxies I've used that yield these kinds of
results take at least a half hour to "kick" (get thick and gooey), and about 4
to 6 hours before they can be sliced and planed (like you mentioned), and at
least 6 to 8 hours before they can be sanded, preferably overnight. Good epoxy
can't be rushed.

--
Free bad advice available here.
To reply, eat the taco.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbqboyee/

I'd suggest mixing up some epoxy in a cup and adding sawdust from the same
kind of wood until the mixture is pretty stiff - it should stand up in peaks
and droop slowly if at all.

It'll still sag some while it's curing, so all you need to do to keep it in
shape is to make some of what used to called "dams": take a couple pieces of
scrap wood, cover them with a strip of smooth tape, and then wipe a thin
film of white grease on the tape so it'll release after the cure.

Do the knots one at a time. Fill the voids with a spatula, tool it until
it's a bit proud all around. Clamp a piece to the underside face and another
to the vertical edge to keep the stuff from drooping out of the patch.
Finally wipe off the squeezed-out mixture and tool the upper face until it's
just very slightly proud (epoxy doesn't shrink to any appreciable extent).
Work reasonably quickly.

After a while, while it's still just a bit green (not yet cured rock-hard),
pop off the dams, give the edge and the underside face a wipe with a small
bit of paint thinner to remove any trace of the grease, and block-sand as
necessary with a coarse paper like 60 or 80 grit to make it flush. Let it
finish curing, and then go over the faces and the edge with finer grits
until you like the look.

The filler will come out darker than you expect, so do a test on a piece of
scrap to see if it's to your taste. If not, there are other special-purpose
fillers for epoxy which come out white or gray, and then you can take a
brown sharpie and just draw over the patches to try to match the grain, or
stain it to suit yourself.

For something like this, I use West Epoxy. You can get different catalysts
which cure at different speeds. For this I'd use slow catalyst so that I'd
have plenty of time to work the patch before it started to stiffen up.
Hardware store epoxy might not give you that flexibility.

Tom

On Jul 10, 1:50*pm, "Tom Dacon" wrote:
I'd suggest mixing up some epoxy in a cup and adding sawdust from the same
kind of wood until the mixture is pretty stiff - it should stand up in peaks
and droop slowly if at all.

It'll still sag some while it's curing, so all you need to do to keep it in
shape is to make some of what used to called "dams": take a couple pieces of
scrap wood, cover them with a strip of smooth tape, and then wipe a thin
film of white grease on the tape so it'll release after the cure.

Do the knots one at a time. Fill the voids with a spatula, tool it until
it's a bit proud all around. Clamp a piece to the underside face and another
to the vertical edge to keep the stuff from drooping out of the patch.
Finally wipe off the squeezed-out mixture and tool the upper face until it's
just very slightly proud (epoxy doesn't shrink to any appreciable extent)..
Work reasonably quickly.

After a while, while it's still just a bit green (not yet cured rock-hard),
pop off the dams, give the edge and the underside face a wipe with a small
bit of paint thinner to remove any trace of the grease, and block-sand as
necessary with a coarse paper like 60 or 80 grit to make it flush. Let it
finish curing, and then go over the faces and the edge with finer grits
until you like the look.

The filler will come out darker than you expect, so do a test on a piece of
scrap to see if it's to your taste. If not, there are other special-purpose
fillers for epoxy which come out white or gray, and then you can take a
brown sharpie and just draw over the patches to try to match the grain, or
stain it to suit yourself.

For something like this, I use West Epoxy. You can get different catalysts
which cure at different speeds. For this I'd use slow catalyst so that I'd
have plenty of time to work the patch before it started to stiffen up.
Hardware store epoxy might not give you that flexibility.

Tom

Well I've filled all the knots now, and to my eyes they turned out
great. I pre-finished around the sites to seal the pores, and after a
few hours of drying I made dams out of small strips of wood into which
I rubbed paraffin. The epoxy was too thick to flow into every single
crevasse, but it didn't have to. It just had to hold the biggest
chunks in place. So now that's done, and the dams came off easily,
leaving behind perfectly flat and flush epoxy surfaces. I've got a
couple more dutchmans to do, and then the whole face frame will be
ready for finishing and installation. Yeehaa!

Thanks again, everyone, for all the tips!

- Owen -

On 9 July, 13:33, manyirons wrote:

and I'm thinking epoxy would be the best choice.

Decent epoxy, filled with phenolic microballoons to the consistency of
peanut butter. For paler wood, silica microballoons with a dye. You
can apply this with a popsicle stick, you don't need a mould.
Microballoon filler is useful because it's easy to sand afterwards.