# Filling Voids?



## justallan (Feb 11, 2016)

I'm wanting to take a chunk of this FBEB and make a crib board for the owner of the next ranch over who lets me take trees. His board would be out of a tree from his property.
My plan is to plane a slab on the CNC, carve my design, fill all voids plus the design and then drill the holes last.
What kind of resin or "void filler" is the best choice knowing that I'll be drilling through it?
Thanks in advance


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## Sprung (Feb 11, 2016)

My experience with epoxy has been almost entirely in the realm of boat building and not necessarily using it to fill voids in the manner you would be doing, but epoxy has drilled decent enough for me in the past - as long as you do not let the bit or the epoxy get hot. Epoxy can also be tinted if you want to add some color.


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## Schroedc (Feb 11, 2016)

Fiberglass resin, any auto parts store has it or fleet farm type place, As long as you aren't filling it more than 1/4 inch max (It'll want to shrink and crack a bit, I just do two pours if I need to go more than 1/4 inch or so). It'll tint just fine and machines nice as long as your bits are sharp. Has some yellow tint to it but I've tinted it with various enamel paints, even nail polish works. It's basically the same type of stuff as Silmar 41 but just not at clear and fairly inexpensive


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## justallan (Feb 11, 2016)

I didn't think of fiberglass resin. I've done fiberglass on everything from water tanks to a sail boat to a friends Corvette. I'll give that a shot on a test piece and figure out my feed and speed set-up.
Any more ideas are greatly appreciated.

Reactions: Like 1


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## justallan (Feb 11, 2016)

Well, it fit better than I was thinking it would. I planed it, did the carving and did the first pass on cutting it out. There are only 3 spots where a coating will run off, but I'm now considering just filling the few voids where holes will be and drilling it. I can leave the edges for now and sand them out before applying the finish. What's your thoughts?

Reactions: Like 2 | Way Cool 2


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## Chris S. (Feb 11, 2016)

z-poxy epoxy resin worked really good for some things I have done before. I dyed it black and filled voids as it is sorta amber color. Flows really nice and is nice and strong. It is listed as a finishing resin but I have had good luck with it filling voids. Takes a while to cure but other than that I have not had any issues with it. Beautiful work by the way.


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## SENC (Feb 11, 2016)

Very cool, Allan.


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## justallan (Feb 11, 2016)

I cheated. I used CA glue and it drilled just fine. I'd give it some CA, then hit it with activator, over and over. after I drilled it, I used a pen vise to clean the holes and they all felt plenty solid. I see I missed one. LOL 
This pic is real close to the light so it shows how well the glue drilled.
I'm happy with it.

Reactions: Like 1 | Way Cool 5


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## ironman123 (Feb 11, 2016)

That turned out pretty good Allan.

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## Sprung (Feb 11, 2016)

Allan, that came out amazing! I'm guessing all the holes are CNC too?


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## justallan (Feb 11, 2016)

It's still needing the peg stash milled out, then sanded and a finish put on it.
I do think it will turn out pretty darned nice.



Sprung said:


> Allan, that came out amazing! I'm guessing all the holes are CNC too?


Yessir. The only part I do on other machines is saw the slab, clean up the edges on a belt sander and finish sanding the whole thing with a palm sander and by hand from there.


And just think, I only need right at 100 more of these and the CNC is paid for.


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## rocky1 (Feb 12, 2016)

Well, if you sell everybody in Broadus one, you oughta get close! 

Sharp work, that is really sweet!! If I knew how to play cribbage, I'd be tempted to order on.


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## justallan (Feb 12, 2016)

The funny part of that is that I've never even been to the town of Broadus and it's not very far away.


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## rocky1 (Feb 12, 2016)

Been through there once 20+ years ago Allan; road tripping with new Family Van. 

Was living in central ND at the time; ran out to Miles City and took 59 down to Gillette, to visit the Ex's sister and her husband. Loooked like a nice route, traveling with small kids, Atlas showed 4 or 5 little towns along the route, supposedly getting smaller as we progressed south from Miles City. First community south of Miles City was a gas station/country store, post office, school, and 4 - 5 houses. The next community was post office, old one room school house with grades K-12 wandering around the yard at recess. Next you could just see the roof of 3 - 4 houses from the highway. We figured we were going to find Teepees pitched or a Prairie Dog town when we got to Broadus, at that point.

Then out in the middle of nowhere, nothing but cows in-sight, we ran up on a nice new modern school house. And, a few miles later actually came upon something that resembled a town, at Broadus. Although the rodeo grounds were nearly as big as the business district, it was because they had really nice rodeo grounds!  

Got to the intersection on the south end of town and there was a 14 - 15 inch antelope buck standing out next to the road grazing, few miles down the road, muley doe and fawn bedded down next to the guard rail on the highway, on the road side, mid-afternoon. Told the Ex, we are most definitely in the middle of nowhere!

Reactions: Funny 2


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## justallan (Feb 12, 2016)

Yup, that sounds like about what I've heard too. From Miles City to Gillette is supposed to be just horrible for deer and antelope trying to hitch a ride.


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## Blueglass (Feb 12, 2016)

I've been filling voids and cracks quite a bit. The Mesquite drum I'm working on I took a step farther and did a ton of research. I used fiberglass resin sometimes cut with acetone. Right after that I learned FG resin expands and contracts during its reaction. Epoxy does not and can be thinned with denatured alcohol.

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## Strider (Feb 15, 2016)

Sorry for being late...
All the things said are correct, but if you would like a transparent filling, both in color and...well...transparency, I suggest you take glass or ice resin, as they call it, for jewelry making. It is a two part resin with setting times depending on the manufacturer. You can dye them with glass dye, food dye, whatever you find appropriate. It will not change the color do to chemical reaction, Egg. adding red to boat resin will turn brown or something else than red. No problem with that here.
Cool project, I am glad it worked out!

Reactions: Like 1


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