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Tight Cracks

William Rogers

William Rogers

Joined
Mar 19, 2016
Messages
1,533
Likes
2,063
Location
Haubstadt, Indiana
Turning a bowl from a piece of Padauk and once turned there was a tight crack about the width of a sharp pencil about 1” long from the edge to the inside. I filled with wood dust and CA for a repair. If you look you can see the repair, but doesn’t stand out. My question is if you sell the piece do you point out the crack?
 
All of us woodworkers have a habit of pointing out things that went wrong. That's fine among fellow woodworkers but i never mention it when selling because 99% of the people either don't notice or see it as a unique feature. Now if it was potential structural problems I would.
 
If it has a crack in it, I don't sell it. It's a freebie to a relative or the garbage. Ceramic and glass artists don't sell cracked work, why should woodturners?
 
Richard Coers said:
If it has a crack in it, I don't sell it. It's a freebie to a relative or the garbage. Ceramic and glass artists don't sell cracked work, why should woodturners?
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If you can elevate the crack to the status of art you can both sell it and charge extra for it. If it looks like a patched mistake it goes into the burn pile. Think of the difference between raku and fine Wedgewood porcelain. Raku without cracks is wrong, as is Wedgewood with cracks.

I'm not an artist, so mine mostly go to the burn pile.
 
I decided to finish turning the bowl. The pictures are before finish. The crack is very tight and hard to point out. I can see the point if there is a large structural crack, but I don’t see any reason to trash this piece because of a very small imperfection. I wanted to see if opinions were very different from my own. I guess you need to evaluate each piece individually and there is no one size fits all IMO.

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Bill, as kind of a new kid learning, why can't you fill the crack with a color matched wax or filler of some sort to make it invisible? It's such a small crack and seems easy to repair on such on fine piece.
 
My opinion is that mixing wood dust with any kind of glue draws attention to the crack because it won't look like the surrounding wood. If it's a hairline crack then just CA glue should be sufficient. I actually like brown Starbond for this purpose. The brown CA is translucent in color and is somewhere between brown and amber in my opinion. I use it for slightly larger cracks and sometimes for filling borer tunnels.
 
Richard Coers said:
If it has a crack in it, I don't sell it. It's a freebie to a relative or the garbage. Ceramic and glass artists don't sell cracked work, why should woodturners?
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That's funny. I guess it all depends where you are. I welcome cracks, each pewa patch adds $20 to a bowl. I have lost sales because the bowl did not have a crack with some Hawaiian repairs
 
Glenn C Roberts said:
Bill, as kind of a new kid learning, why can't you fill the crack with a color matched wax or filler of some sort to make it invisible? It's such a small crack and seems easy to repair on such on fine piece.
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Glenn I have some of the wax sticks however they are for lighter wood. It wouldn’t work for this piece because of the texturing. If we had a finished piece with a void and not a crack it might be viable, but I suspect the crack would reappear with the wood movement if it wasn’t glued. I called it a crack, but it doesn’t go through to the back side, just surface.

Bill Boehme said:
My opinion is that mixing wood dust with any kind of glue draws attention to the crack because it won't look like the surrounding wood. If it's a hairline crack then just CA glue should be sufficient. I actually like brown Starbond for this purpose. The brown CA is translucent in color and is somewhere between brown and amber in my opinion. I use it for slightly larger cracks and sometimes for filling borer tunnels.
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Bill, I haven’t heard about the brown CA. What is the brand?
 
Emiliano Achaval said:
That's funny. I guess it all depends where you are. I welcome cracks, each pewa patch adds $20 to a bowl. I have lost sales because the bowl did not have a crack with some Hawaiian repairs
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I guess if Central IL native culture had a name for a patch on a wood crack I could do the same. I'd need the tourist trade too. I assume you rush the drying of your work to insure cracking then?
 
Richard Coers said:
I guess if Central IL native culture had a name for a patch on a wood crack I could do the same. I'd need the tourist trade too. I assume you rush the drying of your work to insure cracking then?
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My biggest sales are all local. Local families, local companies, appreciate the tradition behind a Koa Calabash. I live just a few miles from the rainforest. I do not have to worry about drying my wood, I do not even use Anchorseal, I do not wrap it, do not hide it in shavings, do not pray to the drying Gods, and hardly ever cracks. But there is no shortage of natural cracks, voids, bark intrusions and more...
 
Baking soda and ca, or even coffee grounds and ca on darker woods. Showing sawdust, or whatever in the crack, just seems to make it stand out more.
 
I have discovered Starbond Black CA and have used it for the last month. Works well and just looks like part of a wood flaw. As to telling the customer , only if asked and then the answer is it is repaired and will not be a problem because it will not be a problem.
 
For a hairline crack I sand across it with 220 grit filling the crack with dust. Hit it with thin Ca and then quickly sand some more before the CA glue flashes off. You can’t see it when I’m done- looks like wood grain. I’ve got a cherry bowl I just finished. If I can remember where the crack was I’ll post a picture of it.

If it’s larger I do black CA glue or colored powder, copper dust, something to dress it up and then a pewa if it’s on the outside. Anything over 1/8” gets epoxy and pearlescent dust. My bowls with pewas get way more attention than others. People love that stuff right now. You have to use the right terms: rescued, reclaimed, repurposed, locally sourced, unique, gluten free, free range, humanely raised etc. my epoxy repaired bowls usually sell pretty quickly.
 
Gerald Lawrence said:
I have discovered Starbond Black CA and have used it for the last month. Works well and just looks like part of a wood flaw. As to telling the customer , only if asked and then the answer is it is repaired and will not be a problem because it will not be a problem.
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I have been having problems with my black Starbond CA. I spray it and it dries but just the surface. Even overnight the other day, still wet and oozing! The brown one seems to be ok
 
Emiliano Achaval said:
I have been having problems with my black Starbond CA. I spray it and it dries but just the surface. Even overnight the other day, still wet and oozing! The brown one seems to be ok
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I have definitely seen that. The surface dries so quickly the accelerator doesn’t penetrate. If I have a large crack I’ll use some kind of filler like coffee grinds and apply the black CA glue in layers. The moisture in the coffee beans seems to help accelerate the reaction. Sometimes I’ll lay down a little accelerator first. I’ve had a couple times where I’m sanding the repair and uncover some liquid CA glue.
 
Emiliano Achaval said:
I have been having problems with my black Starbond CA. I spray it and it dries but just the surface. Even overnight the other day, still wet and oozing! The brown one seems to be ok
Click to expand...

In addition to what Rob said Capt Eddie used to say spray activator on the wood then CA and I wonder if that would help. I have had this same problem on deeper and wider cracks so maybe a combination of spray first and layering the glue will do the trick.
 
Gerald Lawrence said:
In addition to what Rob said Capt Eddie used to say spray activator on the wood then CA and I wonder if that would help. I have had this same problem on deeper and wider cracks so maybe a combination of spray first and layering the glue will do the trick.
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I thought that maybe I got I bad batch of the black CA. I used to buy a different accelerator, another brand, came in a spray bottle with pressure, in my opinion, that one worked faster. It also smelled stronger than the Starbond one. I will try spraying the crack first. But I'm just about ready to throw it away...
 
Bill Boehme said:
Your CA is probably old. It seems to have the shortest shelf life of all the different CA glues that I use.
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You are probably right, I was just thinking it is time to order some fresh bottles. I will test the black one as soon as I get it...
 
Bill Boehme said:
Your CA is probably old. It seems to have the shortest shelf life of all the different CA glues that I use.
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Bill I just got the black CA this month. I wonder if the color they are using maybe causes it to have much more open time.
 
Bill Boehme said:
If my memory is correct, the black CA is thick while the brown is medium. Thick CA takes a long time to cure.
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Actually says medium thick on label but performs more like medium
May he formula change
 
Doug Freeman said:
I don’t point them out but if asked I tell them. Some of my pieces have many cracks and voids, which seem to get the most interest from people.
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Woodworking is a measure of how skillfully you can overcome wood defects and make it pretty. Most people are amazed when they can see a corrected defect with their eyes, but can't feel it with their fingertips.
 
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