How to deal with worm holes in a turned bowl?

[Dave H]

I've had some spalted ash logs for a few years and finally decided to make one into a bowl. I've turned the bowl yesterday and sanded everything inside and out to 100grit. At this point the bowl looks real nice it has some great spalting, the problem is the outside of this bowl has 10 or so worm tracks and, couple on the inside, I used a dental pick and cleaned the smutz or would that be worm poo, anyway I'm wondering if I fill the holes with CA glue should I use thin or thick and, should I bring to height in lifts? The worm trails are maybe 1/8" and the longest is maybe 1" I didn't progress beyond 100grit so I can knock the CA build up back at 100grit them move on to progressively finer grits. I'm going to make this into a yarn bowl for my daughter who does crochet work.

 

[wtnhighlander]

I prefer to fill such defects with fine sawdust mixed into the glue, and  I use thin CA, with one application bei g generally enough for defects that size.

You might consider using metallic powder in place of sawdust to give it some pop.

[Dave H]

Thanks @wtnhighlander I was going with clear to celebrate the worm trails I think it would cool but, I admit I've never tried this the reason I was wondering about bringing the CA glue up in incremental lifts is I'm worried about voids and bubbles or, if I should built the glue up in one go. I guess we will see if this is a good idea or I've finally gone off the deep end, regardless my daughter will be pulling yarn from this little experiment. 

[wtnhighlander]

@duckkisser used to inlay bands of crushed stone in his turnings. I know he did layers, going from coarse to fine bits, but can't recall what thickness of CA he used.

Maybe he'll pop by with a hint.

[Gary Beasley]

You will likely need to make a last pass or two with a gouge or negative rake scraper after filling to get the profile smooth.  Though often when I found these packed worm trails I would straight away soak them with thin CA to bind the stuff together and it would look pretty good. Then the finishing was a good bit easier.

[Dave H]

Thanks Gary I used a dental pick and dug all the packed in stuff from the worm trails, so it's down to bare wood at this point. My gut feeling is use the gel CA glue and, try to do it in one go as Larry The Cable Guy says "gitter done" it either works or not it's a yarn bowl my next dilemma how I'm going to cut the the upside down question mark or maybe a more accurate description would be a snail shell shape. I'm thinking a coping saw maybe or, I do have a Drumel I'll mess around with some scrap wood. Thanks for the suggestions if it turns out OK and not just fire wood I'll post a picture don't hold your breath.

 

[Dave H]

Well I decided to fill the worm tracks with thin CA glue, what I didn't expect was this glue shrinking down multimale times and the length of time it takes to set up enough to spin the bowl to another area so gravity doesn't let the filled area sag I have some time on Friday, and all day Saturday and a little bit this mourning doing a bit of topping off a couple spots. Now I will leave the glue to set up another day or two before sanding it back, when CA is used for thicker applications it stays in a plastic state and I think needs more time to get brittle enough to sand back and not load up the sandpaper. I've never used CA for filling voids before just sticking things together where the bound happens in a matter of seconds I'm wondering if 5min epoxy would have been a better choice hmmm....

[Chestnut]

Thick CA fills do take time but have the advantage of not having to mix and guess volumes vs epoxy. I've had some luck filling in layers but this isn't advisable unless closer to finished thickness.

[Gary Beasley]

One nice aspect to the clear fill is the curved surface when polished will magnify the inside a bit and make the surface look level. A cool thing if the hole is deep or undercut you can actually peer into the hole sideways and see around its corners. Ive dealt with that on pens and it does make it look interesting.

[Dave H]

@Gary Beasley That's exactly what I was going for, the bowl will have a smooth and level finish but, you will see into the worm trails. I thought that would look interesting. Thanks

[Dave H]

the bowl turned out good I think the grain and spalting is amazing I wish I had more of this ash, the worm tracks weren't that great you can only see into a couple of them the rest just blend in 

[wtnhighlander]

I don't see any holes that you didn't make!  That turned out quite an attractive and unique bowl.

[Mark J]

+1!

[Dave H]

Thanks guys. The worm tracks mostly just blended in and disappeared, if you look really close while holding the bowl you can see down into the tracks but, it doesn't matter my daughter was very happy to get it and started setting up her latest crochet masterpiece into it and, was all smiles good enough for me!

[duckkisser]

On 4/8/2022 at 5:36 PM, wtnhighlander said:

@duckkisser used to inlay bands of crushed stone in his turnings. I know he did layers, going from coarse to fine bits, but can't recall what thickness of CA he used.

Maybe he'll pop by with a hint.

little late but I use thin ca to get between stones. Looks like a nice bowl. I love spalting just hate if you let it go to long the wood crumbles from the rot.  This looks like it’s just perfect not too rotted just enough to give some figure.