# Wood Fillers?



## Wado (May 15, 2011)

I have tried them all, Plastic Wood, Famowood, Dap, you name it I have tried it. Paint grade I have absolutely no problem hiding nail holes but stain and clear coated stuff no matter what I use even after thorough sanding and cleaning I still get shadows around my nails. Famowood has been the best but when it's ninety degrees you have to work frantically to get just enough in the holes before it dries, which in case you get too much then you have a shadow. I pretty much use Minwax Polycrylic for the top coat over oil base stains on all of my pieces so here is the question. I did some work with a cabinet maker that uses soft putty for fillers. Sometimes he sprays a sealer coat over the puttied holes sometimes he fills them last with no sealer. He uses oil base stains with a top coat of catalyzed lacquer. Nowhere have I seen or read if these soft putties can be used in conjunction with water borne sealers if you plan to top coat over them. I have cheated and used it if I missed a nail before finishing so I know it doesn't degrade the acrylic finish but I would like to spray a top coat over it. My next move is to do a test piece and see if the acrylic stick to the area I fill. Does anyone have any experience with this stuff?


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## boltmaster (Aug 16, 2011)

I have had good luck using some of the very fine sawdust from the same wood taken after a 220 or 320 sanding mixed with a bit of wood glue into a fairly thick paste. Mix it and fill the holes with it then I remove the excess and just leave a little hump over the spot and sand smooth when fully dry and hard. It usually works very well to hide the small spots


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## bill (May 21, 2004)

countersink the screws/nails...use a small piece of wood to fill the hole, sand and finish


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## boltmaster (Aug 16, 2011)

bill said:


> countersink the screws/nails...use a small piece of wood to fill the hole, sand and finish


This is what I do on screw joints


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## Wado (May 15, 2011)

*Fillers*

All good suggestions, thanks. I am mostly filling nail holes and I am trying to avoid sanding. My main concern is the durability of the soft fillers, I know it's fast but fast doesn't usually mean good. I worked for a boat builder years ago and we saved saw dust and sifted it to make wood flour. If you sift it you get the little stringy fibers out and it works really good. We mixed it with powdered Weldwood Waterproof glue and when it set it looked just like wood but you could forget about staining it. It sure will hide a mistake.


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## bill (May 21, 2004)

stain will not go into anything like resins, you might get away with small spots with the sawdust glue mix but still, it would be sealed and the stain not go in...depending on the color of the stain, you might be able to come up with a pigment or dye


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## trout250 (Aug 24, 2005)

yrs. ago we would stain then seal, sand and then use putty colored with oil base coloring to putty up the holes and never had any problems. On most of the furniture i stain, seal, get a coat of finish then use use a fill stick put out by finish manufacturers, then finish my top coat, but most of my finishes are lacquer.


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## Wordsaw (Apr 17, 2013)

Try thinning your filler with mineral spirits. Fine Woodworking did an article on this a couple years back. Thin it to about the consistency of latex paint. It will give you a longer working time and does a much better job of filling small grain.


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