The thrill of the fill

I love working with burl and highly-figured wood when I can get it. And if the wood has some voids and interesting cracks that can be filled with epoxy for…

I love working with burl and highly-figured wood when I can get it. And if the wood has some voids and interesting cracks that can be filled with epoxy for some interesting accents, that’s great. In fact, the more the better. 

My most recent project gave me an opportunity to do just that. I’ve been commissioned to design and make three awards for a local group, and while they weren’t too particular about the design, they did specify the award size and requested the use of burl. 

I found some burl chunks on eBay that looked like good candidates. Each piece had some decent voids, including one that went all the way through, and another that not only went through but also around one edge. The burls were surprisingly inexpensive, and my guess is that the seller considered the voids to be flaws and priced them accordingly. His mistake was my gain. 

A lot of folks find working with epoxy difficult, but as long as I get the mix percentages correct, I’m not one of them. The key, for me at least, is to overfill the voids a bit to allow for additional settling as it cures, then bring any excess cured epoxy down to the wood surface with hand plane and sanding. 

You can see the results above. First, I taped the underside and edges to create a form and prevent leak-through on those areas. Once cured, a quick planing to remove the bulk of the epoxy, then a final good sanding to smooth everything out and reveal how nice the fills turned out. 

I was really pleased with the outcome, but now I don’t want to part with them. They ended up looking so nice, I may just get some different burl chunks for the awards I’m working on and keep these for myself. They’ll never know. 

 A.J. Hamler is the former editor of Woodshop News and Woodcraft Magazine. He's currently a freelance woodworking writer/editor, which is another way of stating self-employed. When he's not writing or in the shop, he enjoys science fiction, gourmet cooking and Civil War reenacting, but not at the same time.