Well over a year ago, I started working with a large piece of red oak that smelled really bad when it was turned green and had a whole series of splits and cracks that should have made it firewood.  My first attempt at “I can fix it” involved trying to mix red chalk (like the kind that gets put into construction chalk lines) with CA glue.  Once I was done filling all the cracks, I was convinced it was going to be a masterpiece!  As soon as I started turning it, I realized that is was a complete disaster.  Something about the chalk didn’t mix with the CA glue, so as soon as the top surface was turned away, all of the chalk underneath fell out, still in a powder.  For the second time, I figured this was firewood.

Cleaning out the shop, I found this failure again and took another look.  Instead of trying to use chalk and CA glue, I decided to dig all of the old filler out and replace it with epoxy casting resin, dies with Alumilite red dye.  I should have stopped there, but somehow, I got the bright idea to add to the filler, by using something else, encased in the resin.  But, what to use?  I saw some brazing rods and in my head, I thought “these are made from brass, and brass is a soft metal, so this should look pretty cool” and started jamming pieces of the brazing rods into the gaps while the resin was still liquid.  HUGE mistake!  Brazing rods aren’t actually made of brass, they’re made of some kind of steel.  The tools I use are also steel, so the end result was the steel in the bowl chewed the living hell out of my tools!  I switched to carbide steel tipped tools, which was a little better, but I have to admit much of the “fine work” was done with 60 grit sandpaper.

Here’s the final result.  Overall, it really looks good!  The finish is Danish Oil (to darken the color of the red oak), followed by Yorkshire grit (an abrasive wax), then a final coat of Renaissance Wax.  All things considered, this was definitely worth the wait!