Filling 1" holes without breaking wallet

Re: Filling 1" holes without breaking wallet

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>Know any woodturners?

Re: Filling 1" holes without breaking wallet

Jorge Casta�eda ~ East Penobscot Bay

>If no wod turning friends around, try a boatyard, mahogany bungs are very common.

How about....

Steve Kubien

>some dowel slightly larger than your hole. Chamfer it and you ought to get a nice snug fit.

My 2�

Steve Kubien

Re: Filling 1" holes without breaking wallet

Tom in Tipp

>http://www.toolking.com/shop/index2.asp?parent=277

Would a hole-saw work to at least get you close to filling those voids? It might be worth a try if you can match the diameters.

Tom

Re: Filling 1" holes without breaking wallet

joel

>Cut a piece of wood the shape of a football big enough to cover the hole, try to match speicies and grain. make it about 1/4" or so thick and taper the sides slightly. grain goes point to point on the football.

Place patch over hole with points of football going with the grain. Scribe around with knife (note: with the sides of the patch tapered you will be scribeing slightly smaller than the upper face of the patch which is good.

Chisel out recess for patch leaving patch slightly proud of surface. In-callel gouges really help here but aren't a requirement. a Router jig can help - then just chisel out the points of the football.

Glue in patch - malletting it in for right fit.

Plane flush.

if done with a decent match to wood - it will be invisible.

Re: How about....

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, South of Miami FL

>I thought of that... and then I realized that the plugs would be end-grain. :-(

Re: Filling 1" holes without breaking wallet

Jim in Burlington Ontario

>Take the same drill bit he used and drill a hole in a piece of scrap. Cut out some pieces close to the size and trying to match the grain pattern and sand them up testing for fit with the hole you drilled. You said you only need 4 shouldn't take a hour.

Re: Filling 1" holes without breaking wallet

Dan Clermont in Burnaby

>I like Jim's idea. I'd go one step further and taper the plaug and whack it into the hoe. That'll fill it.

Dan Clermont in Burnaby

Re: Filling 1" holes without breaking wallet

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>Thanks for all the excellent suggestions -- this is SUCH a terrific community!

I do want to avoid end-grain, as it does not hold paint as well, and these are very exposed locations; so the dowel approach is out (also, locally available dowels are not in very durable species). I think I'll either be adopting Joel's footballs, influenced as they may have been by this weekend's topic of conversation among Super Bowl fans (and family members thereof), or trying the rough-cut and sand method Jim and Dan suggest.

Jorge, in spite of the fact that I'm ten miles from the Pacific Coast, I doubt I could find a boatyard with the bungs -- our local hardware store has increased its stainless steel hardware inventory because the Bodega Bay yards have shut down. I might try, though...

Re: Filling 1" holes without breaking wallet

William R. Duffield, on the Cohansey

>The reason for the football shape is because plugs in that shape are much less visible than round ones, especially if finished bright.

And the reason they're less visible is ...

Kevin F, New Zealand

>... that there is no place where the joint goes across the grain at right angles. The ends of the football should be points, not rounded. Then at each side of the point the joint is at, say, 30 to 45 degrees to the grain. This is not very visible at all.

Plugs of this shape are sometimes called "dutchmen". I don't know why.

Cheers

Kevin

Re: Filling 1" holes without breaking wallet

Bryan Smith

>What about squaring up the round holes in the posts with a sharp chisel. Would that make it eaisier to get a good grain match?

Re: And the reason they're less visible is ...

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>I think "dutchman" is a more general term, applied to any inletting of a wood patch. The current Foine Homebuilding has an article on window sash repair in which the author uses the term in reference to a rectangular patch (pictured in the article). And I recall a long article, with pictures, by Stephen Thomas back on Badger Pond, in which he described the process of letting dutchmen of many shapes into an historical floor. Another of the occasions that I tried to short out my keyboard by drooling on it.

I'm aware that a football-shaped, aka boat-shaped, patch is less visible, but these will ultimately be mostly hidden by the balusters, so I'm not terribly concerned -- and anyway, I'd prefer that they be slightly visible to reduce future frustration when the railing must be removed, since the bolts hidden under them thread into the backside of the railing brackets and are not otherwise visible.

Re: Filling 1" holes without breaking wallet

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>They'll be painted, so grain match isn't terribly critical; and I've found that oilbase primer bleeds a lot less with redwood than latex. Oilbase also does a great job of covering over minor differences in grain.

Re: Filling 1" holes without breaking wallet

Jorge Casta�eda ~ East Penobscot Bay

>Bill,

If you are of luck finding the bungs I'll send you some, they are easy to find around here

Re: Filling 1" holes without breaking wallet

William R. Duffield, on the Cohansey

>If you are worried about bleeding, maybe you should be considering a shellac-based primer, for example Zinsser's B.I.N or 1-2-3?

Re: And the reason they're less visible is ...

William R. Duffield, on the Cohansey

>They're called Dutchmen because the Nederlanders, like the Scots and like certain Yankees, have a reputation for frugality.

Re: Filling 1" holes without breaking wallet

Matt Curley in Windsor, CA

>Hi Bill,

Sorry I'm late joining the fray... but how about cutting a 1x1 blank and just 1/4 rounding the four corners? You could use a moulding plane (or a r**t*r if electrons are not a worry)...

Matt

PS> I didn't get the Baltic Ply last week... Honey-dos intruded, will do for sure this week... see ya

Re: And the reason they're less visible is ...

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>So they could just as easily have been called Scotsmen? I like that idea.

I remember hearing once that the very same disease, generally contracted by imprudent sexual activity, that the British call "the French disease" is called "the English disease" by the French.

Use a router?

Chris Knight

>It's easy to cut circular sections with a router and a small circle cutting base - you will have a small hole in the centre from the compass point which you can either fill with sawdust and finish, or if you want a solid plug, just redrill for the size of plug cutter you have.

Chris

Re: Use a router?

William R. Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Or, put the hold at the bottom of the plug, instead of on the surface. When I cut a plug this way, I usually cut it part way through the piece of wood, and then rip the plug loose on the TS. That way, when the router finishes its cut, the plug doesn't come loose, to be bounced around in the hole and shredded by the router bit. Unless I need to make a lot of them, I don't use the router, because the set up takes too long.

Re: Tom's right

Ernie Miller Topeka

>A 1 1/4" hole saw should give you a 1" plug be sure and use it without the cinter bit. you can allways taper it a little with a chisel if it is to large and plane off flush. They are on sale at my local HF for about $4 for the small set.