|
woodezine - Volume
III - Issue III - March 2005
|
|
Last month, we had an interesting letter here at Woodezine. It was from Gary Andrews, who is the CEO of a company called Valiant Technologies in California. Gary noticed that our audience has a lot of carvers, turners and furniture makers, and he thought we might like to pass along some info about his product, EZ-Poly Wood Rebuilder. Some of you may know it by its old name, RayCrete. |
|
|
What caught our eye was a note (included with Gary's letter) from Bob Heltman, a mail-order guru from North Carolina who also is a member of the Carolina Mountain Woodturners club. In addition to using this filler/repair compound to fix a fiberglas canoe, rotten window sills and garden tool handles, Mr. Heltman mentioned that he had used it to save some bowls he was turning. "There was a wood-boring grub in an oak blank I was turning for a nut bowl," he explained, "and its tunnels were running through the blank. Also, there was a little dry rot. Even after sanding, the exposed endgrain felt like chin stubble!" |
|
Well, we've all been there. You can reverse the rotation, use various abrasives, seal and sand till the cows come home and that rough texture never seems to completely disappear. However, Bob Heltman tried something we hadn't heard of before: he mixed up a batch of Gary Andrews' EZ-Poly and pressed it into the end grain as well as the worm holes. He used his fingertips with the bowl still chucked in the lathe, but not spinning. He even mixed in some sawdust, to help with color matching. You apparently have to do this with the A part of the two-part compound, then add an equal amount of the B part, mix well and apply immediately. If you wash your hands right away, the compound will clean right up. After starting up the lathe again and sanding down to 400 grit, Bob was delighted with the results. |
|
|
Two more bowls - these were being turned from an old holly tree - also received some first aid. These were almost plates: large shallow bowls that took advantage of the width of the 106-year-old trunk of the holly tree. To help them dry a little faster in the final stretch, Bob exposed them to some of the forced-air heat in his home. Big mistake. One of them warped beyond repair, and the other developed large radial cracks from the center to one edge. |
 |
|
He filled them with EZ-Poly and then turned it again. After sanding, he finished the piece with a couple of coats of a product called Preserve Woodworker's Cream, and was again very pleased with the results. One nice thing about this filler is that it can be colored with dry pigment to pretty much match any species, or even create a startling contrast in inlays. EZ-Poly also can be used to glue woods together, and glue wood to some plastics and other materials like pewter It's well worth a look if you're a carver, too, as it bonds, fills and rebuilds wood. Next time you take a little too much off, perhaps you can add a bit back on and recarve the piece. It doesn't emit any toxic fumes and is non-flammable, so it's pretty safe to work with. You just make a mold, mix up a batch of the compound, color or texture it, and when it's dry, carve, sand or shape it to form. You can even drive screws into it, which means its not brittle. And it's ideal for projects that will be exposed to the weather. |