Filling small gap in mitered join

[Mike Rocket J. Squirrel Elliot]

My medicine cabinet door w/inset mirror project is coming right along. The door frame, which will hold the mirror, is built of poplar w/45 degree miters, joined with biscuits and glued with urethane glue. It's not fine woodworking but once painted it will look all right. Hey -- it's square, flat, feels solid, and will fit the cabinet. I take my little victories where I can.

One of the joints didn't close completely and needs a bit of filling. The gap is no more than 0.02'' wide and half that deep. I have "Plastic Wood" and that lightweight white spackling compound on hand. But this is such a small gap that I would not expect either to sit down in it real well when I go to finish sand before painting. What's a good filler with strong adhesion for filling a small gap like this?

[charlie b]

snip

You may be able to just burnish the gap shut. Use a smooth screw driver shaft, chisel neck or the like and rub each edge towards the gap. If you're careful you won't round the mitered corner line noticably.

charlie b

[loutent]

Hi Mike,

I have used Minwax "advanced" wood filler to fill small (or even larger) gaps in painted projects.

It is a two part filler that dries rock hard in about

20 minutes or so. It's around $5 or so, but you get a large amount so you can have it for other projects. Once sanded smooth, the gap vanishes. I like it because it doesn't seem to shrink like some others.

Miters always drive me crazy for some reason. There always seems to be a small gap here and there.

Lou

[Mike Rocket J. Squirrel Elliot]

Good idea. That may work on the outside of the frame, but not on the face. Maybe just a little bead of wood glue there, and sand down is all I need.

[Frank J. Vitale]

The min wax is good stuff but a little expensive for a small job. As long as you are painting , you may get away with regular spackling compound, not lite or even joint compound,

[Charles Spitzer]

since it's to be painted, bondo.

[mschmidt69]

bondo is your best and most permanent fix.

[John Thomas]

"Mike Rocket J. Squirrel Elliott" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I've used a product called PC Woody; it's a two part, sort of epoxy like filler. I used it to fill in some areas in window frames that had dry- rotted over the years (cleaned out the dry rot, first, of course).

This stuff worked really well - good working time, filled with no shrinkage, and was pretty easy to work with after.

I painted over it, and you can't tell the difference between it, and the surrounding good wood.

Got it at the local Ace Hardware ...

Regards, JT

[Roger M.]

[Glen]

along.

"Plastic

[Fred]

Whats wrong with plain old two part epoxy? It's a little hard to sand down but with a small gap shouldn't be a problem. Painted, it will be invisable.

Fred

[John Thomas]

"Fred" wrote in news:1103156651.668234.319400 @c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

In general, probably nothing.

In my case, I had a number of corner areas to do, and wanted something easier to work than regular epoxy, yet stronger than "bondo"-like materials (eg, regular wood filler, spackle, whatever).

This stuff fit the bill -- good working time, easy enough to sand afterwards, and no issue with paint adhesion. (The mfr claims you can sand, drill, or plane the stuff. Dunno that I'd want to plane it, but it was very workable ...)

Of course, YMMV.

Regards, JT