Filling Up Bark Inclusions

[Ats5331]

Hi all,

Looking for some advice or a quick tutorial on how to fill bark inclusions like in the pictures below:






Thanks!

[Carl Young]

Allen, are you looking for a cosmetic or structural repair (or both)?
Carl

[Ats5331]

@Carl I am not sure. Never done one of these before and trying to find the best way to approach it:) Any advice or guidance is always welcome for either approach!

[flinchrocket]

Just pretend it’s not there and carry on. Won’t hurt anything.

[FALout]

That’s wood.  Personally, I like mineral streaks and such as long as we are not talking huge gaps of missing material.

[smart dog]

Hi Ats,
Ignore it for now until after you stained the stock.  Then use an epoxy like Acra Glas but thin it with acetone so it wicks into the wood and carefully paint the inclusion with it.  The inclusions can be crumbly in spots and all you are trying to do is stabilize the wood.  Thin super glue would work as well.  You don't want the glue to become the surface finish, which is why it is best to thin it.  Then just finish the stock the way you planned.

dave

[Stoner creek]

Bring it to the class. I know a fellow there that can show you how.

[Eric Krewson]

Yep, Mike Brooks is the best at making any kind of wood flaw disappear.

[Ats5331]

Thanks for the advice, guys. I believe I am seeing Mike Brooks and Wayne at the end of this month, so maybe I’ll bring it along😛!

On another note, I am so grateful to have a community that I can ask questions and learn from! Thank you, ALR community!!

[bama]

There is a good possibility that you will some if not all of that bark inclusion in the final shaping. If it is not totally gone by that time then you have two choices, one is to fill/stabilize with a colored epoxy or replace with a wood patch. Wood patches are PC and should not be frowned upon. I am working on a project now that has a small bark inclusion that I just fixed with colored epoxy. I removed all of the lose material in the inclusion and clean the inclusion out the best I could and filled with a black colored 2 part epoxy. I know it looks grey in the photo but it is black. Once I carve and stain this rifle you will not notice this area at all and if you did not know it was there you probably would never notice it.

[hermdog]

I worked at a place that built high end custom wood doors. We used a lot of Knotty Alder. When we had to repair loose knots we would use stained sawdust. Fill the knot hole with stained sawdust and soak it with Hot Stuff (CA glue) then spray it with activator and sand smooth. I wouldn't be afraid to do this with a gunstock. Just match the stain to the inclusion color.

[Blacktail]

I've had success using fiberglass resin with wormholes and inclusions with gaps that needed to be filled. It's quite thin so it flows into the voids well. Dyed black it blends well with a dark finish. The last maple stock I did had some worm tracks which were packed with their leavings. The stuff was pretty stable, like tightly packed sawdust. Once I got down to the final sanding I dripped some minwax wood hardener on those spots and they finished up fine. 

[T*O*F]

Acraglas dyed black.





After checkering, the area was invisible and appeared only as a bit of figure.

[wmrike]

There's the old sawdust & glue kind of patch.  Late in life I am learning that there are stainable wood glues which puts a new wrinkle on this process.  I'm still investigating, but maybe someone more familiar with the stainable glues can chime in.

Most inclusions are pretty porous, which can be good.  Marine supply houses have shelves of epoxies that are designed to penetrate deep and fast to stabilize wood of tenuous strength.  The stuff I have in the garage is "Total Boat," and it worked very well on some cedar damage around the porch.  It's absolutely watery, and I had a hard time putting it on the wood fast enough.

[ed lundquist]

I removed and replaced an inclusion today by using a method I believe I learned from a Mike Brooks post. The inclusion was on the forestock and did not appear until I started scraping when it gave way. There have been a few in this stock and most were shallow and went away with filing. This one I gouged out with an appropriate size gouge and replaced with a piece taken out of the forestock cut off with the same gouge. It took a few tries to get the right piece but the results will be invisible.

This is a poor pic, sorry, but you should get the idea. I have also fixed problem spots by filing out with a square file, cleaning a bit wifh a chisel and glueing in a piece of squared wood and filing off.

[Daryl]

Looks just great, as long as I squint.
Just kidding, Ed. Looks great.