Preserving a crack

Sorry for weighing late on this. I needed to educate myself on sharing pho tos.

I built a natural edge, black walnut coffee table a couple of years back. Hopefully, you can access some photos at:

It had voids to fill, so I experimented with different epoxies, etc. I tri ed a few 5 min. epoxies, but the results were bad since I wanted it to be w ater clear and show the filler material. In the end, I bit the bullet and bought West epoxy and I am very happy I did.

I used an inexpensive mineral that looked like turquoise, fool?s go ld and brass filings as filler material. I tried filings from a key duplic ating machine, but they were too coarse, so I just filed an old brass nut. I taped the bottom of the table and filled with inexpensive filler (Bondo, I think) to about ½? from the top. I then used the filler ma terials with the good epoxy.

I decided to add a butterfly (Dutchman) more for interest than a fear of th e crack opening up. I didn?t want to go with the traditional bowti e shape, so I did, well, a butterfly. ?

My memory is a little fuzzy (getting? old) but I?d be happy to answer questions.

Bill Leonhardt

PS I saved lots of used toner from the copy machine where I work. I thoug ht I would use it to dye epoxy and then use that for filler. The toner wou ldn?t ?wet? so I don?t think this will work out.

That looks nice.... like the turquoise contrast, too, nice choice. Good job.

Sonny