What did we do before filling with Epoxy was a thing?

[transatlantic]

I like to watch a lot of youtube, mostly woodworking related. But I'm really growing tired of seeing people filling every minor (or major) defect with expensive epoxy. And it got me thinking, what did we do before it?

Other than a bow tie, were the imperfections left as is? or was the material simply not used?

I'm not only refering to live edge tables here, or large slabs, but anything with a natural crack or a hole.

Personally, I really don't like the epoxy look, so my preference would be to leave the minor imperfections, and avoid the major ones, but then those cracks/holes just fill up with gunk.

 

[novocaine]

Stabilise, control, fill with wax. If it was to bad, use a better piece of wood and consign to either the scrap pipe or rip to smaller for other jobs.

Of course you could also lay in a new piece if the grain wasn't really of interest too.

 

[custard]

Personally, I really don't like the epoxy look, so my preference would be to leave the minor imperfections, and avoid the major ones

Epoxy has been used for certain jobs for quite a long time, twenty years at least to my certain knowledge. But it was always a minor tool in the repair toolbox. The more commonly used tools were filling small cracks with shellac sticks or wax (hardwax is still widely used today for commercial repairs, including on plastic joinery components and on wooden flooring), drilling out small knots and plugging the holes, patching in with wood and "painting" over grain lines, and removing sections of timber and plugging (on both veneer and solid timber) again "painting" in grain lines. When french polishing it's astonishing the degree of repair work that can be achieved by building up repairs in multiple stages, with sealing coats of shellac between each stage.

But the absolute key, as you identified, was simply avoiding imperfections in the first place.

I guess it's another by product of hobbyist's reluctance to visit a timber yard and select boards for particular projects. If I'm planning a project on notoriously difficult timbers like say English Walnut, where sap is no fault and splits and shakes are endemic, I'll be at the yard with the cutting list in one hand, chalking out key components on individual boards, and even then I'll add 40% or 50% on top to provide reserves and flexibility.

 

[AES]

Just to add "useless" info, "Araldite" was apparently first invented by a Swiss chemist/dentist for filings during WWII when it became difficult to obtain amalgam. Maybe an apocryphal story, maybe not, dunno.

But the original "Araldite" (an epoxy resin made by the then Ciba-Geigy certainly) was first used regularly in a process called Redux bonding for smaller primary aircraft structures in 1947/48 (e.g. Fokker F 27 Friendship tailplanes).

Epoxy resin does have its place IMO - e.g. I'm using similar material for filling screw head holes in a ply kiddies "go kart/sports car" pedal car toy - quite high vibration, lots of flexing, exposed in all weathers, and lots of knocks and bangs). Very good "glue" in certain applications too, especially with mixed materials (e.g. wood to metal).

But for filling "proper furniture"? Dunno, not qualified to comment. I've never built any, and doubt I ever will.

 

[MikeG.]

..........I guess it's another by product of hobbyist's reluctance to visit a timber yard and select boards for particular projects.............

Is this actually so? How are we/ they supposed to get timber then?

I was at my favourite woodyard last week (or the week before), and sorted through a whole pack of oak to find about 15 boards for my next project. £500 worth. Having used some of it, I'll be back to the yard next week to buy up the shortfall, and this despite having the cutting lists in my hand, 2 different coloured bits of chalk, and taking 2 hours over the selection exercise. Oh, and I got a nice discount for re-stacking the pack neatly!

 

[fiveeyes]

It's a fad..started out with being an interesting detail. From there, went to a competition to see whom could be the 'most creative', and use the most epoxy.
Perhaps the next phase will be an all epoxy table or what-not, with (dare i say) real wood 'accents'.
JMHO ..bill..

 

[sammy.se]

PVA and sawdust was what my school DT teacher (Trevor Tyson, now passed away) taught.

More of a classroom hack though, he knew it wasn't the 'proper' way for quality stuff

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[ED65]

Other than a bow tie, were the imperfections left as is? or was the material simply not used?

I'm not only refering to live edge tables here, or large slabs, but anything with a natural crack or a hole.

This is an interesting question but a little broad in scope. Covering all woodwork? Furniture, or just good furniture and if so, how good? Period(s)? From which country/countries?

I know we like to think that with abundant good wood flawed material was selected out and confined to the fire, and there must be a grain of truth to that because some of the earliest woodworking books specify that's what was done. But they're talking about the wood for show surfaces and structural members, for internal components that didn't serve a structural role the standard would be lower, for the backs or other surfaces that were rarely or never seen pretty shoddy stuff could be used as-is (in addition to being left rough from the jack or scrub plane, so the surface could be rough as rats). This is even on some pretty high-end furniture, not the period equivalent of Oak Furnitureland tat!

For the surfaces you would see, on more utilitarian work Dutchmen (or whatever the local tradition called patches of that ilk) might have been the only method used to cover large or ugly flaws, with other minor defects just left. On work of higher quality, the occasional inlet slip or patch, carefully grain matched, along with modest use of beaumontage and shellac or coloured wax probably covers it, until you get to the finishing stages.

Personally, I really don't like the epoxy look, so my preference would be to leave the minor imperfections, and avoid the major ones, but then those cracks/holes just fill up with gunk.

Do you object to it because it's generally made so obvious, such as in all the black/dark brown fills? Would a more colour-matching fill be more acceptable?

I am a bit sick of it myself, but epoxy is a good material for this kind of filling work and its use doesn't have to be starkly obvious.

 

[ED65]

Perhaps the next phase will be an all epoxy table or what-not, with (dare i say) real wood 'accents'.

What do you want to bet that's already a thing? :lol:

 

[transatlantic]

This is an interesting question but a little broad in scope. Covering all woodwork? Furniture, or just good furniture and if so, how good? Period(s)? From which country/countries?

Well for example. Lets take a high quality slab table that was made say 50-100 years ago. What would that have been filled with? maybe it wasn't even a thing back then? and is more of a modern thing?

 

[Beau]

No expert on the past but I doubt the boards that needed lots of filling would be used. The quality and choice gets less year on year as demand gets higher and higher so it seems inevitable we have to develop ways to use boards which would other wise have been put aside for making smaller parts.

For filling my goto is shelac sticks. Liberon do a set and you can blend the colours if need be. I tend to go a bit darker than the surrounding wood as this seems to make the filler less obvious. Black can look tidy as well as it can just look like a small knot. Sawdust and glue just looks a mess IMO.

 

[Lons]

I think as already said it's too broad a question to ask and the fact you don't like epoxy is your personal opinion, one mans meat, another's poison!
Just for the record I don't use it either but would if necessary in the right piece of work.

I wouldn't be keen in a nice furniture project and as Custard said, selection of timber is the way to go but you need an understanding timber supplier who will allow you to rummage through his stock for just a couple of boards especially in the current climate of H&S issues.
For other work such as certain turnings it can look stunning and I quite like the "river tables" which seem to be in current fashion though I guess they'll be old hat in a few years.

As in every situation people will experiment to the degree that many will see it as tasteless and over the top but surely the fact that we see it as wrong doesn't make it so.

Timber has to be pretty bad before I give it away to be burned, too valuable a resource imo for that.

 

[custard]

This is an interesting question but a little broad in scope. Covering all woodwork? Furniture, or just good furniture and if so, how good? Period(s)? From which country/countries?

On work of higher quality, the occasional inlet slip or patch, carefully grain matched, along with modest use of beaumontage and shellac or coloured wax probably covers it, until you get to the finishing stages.

Want a bet?

Careful grain matching and all the other fancy stuff didn't really arrive until the 19th century. There's no shortage of absolutely top end pieces of 18th century furniture where veneer flaws were originally fixed with crude, linear patches. A couple of hundred years of patination, polishing, grime and oxidation have now obscured them, but when first made these patches would have been pretty obvious.

The aesthetic governing surface imperfections was very different back then, prissiness was a Victorian invention!

 

[ED65]

When did Nakashima first make stab stuff? I think that was the early 60s, so that's nigh on 60 years ago now.

He did use butterfly keys to stabilise cracks but other than that I think he left defects open.

 

[custard]

Well for example. Lets take a high quality slab table that was made say 50-100 years ago. What would that have been filled with? maybe it wasn't even a thing back then? and is more of a modern thing?

George Nakashima was a Japanese architect working in America, who was interned following Pearl Harbour. During his internment he met a Japanese woodworker who taught him the craft. After WW2 Nakashima stayed in America and began making his distinctive furniture, he is generally credited as the father of the waney edged, slab top style.

I'm pretty sure he never filled any of his pieces with epoxy or anything else. Thinking about it, that would have run entirely counter to his design ethic.

 

[MarkDennehy]

It's a fad..started out with being an interesting detail. From there, went to a competition to see whom could be the 'most creative', and use the most epoxy.
Perhaps the next phase will be an all epoxy table or what-not, with (dare i say) real wood 'accents'.
JMHO ..bill..

Yeah, but it's a nice fad when the epoxy is transparent like those river tables. It gives you a nice working surface and also lets you stare and daydream at the embedded live edge. And they do make nice art pieces with it:

I mean, that's just pretty.

 

[Adam9453]

A talented veneer man can piece in a section of veneer to cover a damaged area and you’d be very hard pressed to see it even once shown where it is. The skill is obviously in selecting a piece with the right grain and colour to blend in seamlessly but it takes a very trained eye to achieve seamless results.
We’re often asked to veneer solid timber to maintain consistency of colour and grain across a project.
It’s funny really how we choose to use a natural material but go to great lengths to avoid the natural variations in it

 

[Lons]

George Nakashima was a Japanese architect working in America, who was interned following Pearl Harbour. During his internment he met a Japanese woodworker who taught him the craft. After WW2 Nakashima stayed in America and began making his distinctive furniture, he is generally credited as the father of the waney edged, slab top style.

I'm pretty sure he never filled any of his pieces with epoxy or anything else. Thinking about it, that would have run entirely counter to his design ethic.

For anyone interested there is a nice article entitled " The Soul of Nakashima " about his daughter Mira who carried on her fathers' business after his death.
Look for Fine Woodworking No 231 Feb 2013.