Need some advice on finishing mahogany traveler.

[caguy]

I had a chance to work on my traveler for the Luger the last couple of days. It is made of mahogany and sanded down nicely. There were a couple of gouges on it and the grain was slightly split so I filled them with red mahogany plastic wood dough. It seemed to be a very close match to the color of the unfinished wood. However, when I varnished it with clear Cabot's Varnish the wood turned much darker than the filler.
What kind of filler should I have used or should I have done something differently in varnishing.
What can I do now to improve the match.
Thanks for all help.

 

[sailingdog]

That's because the wood absorbed the varnish... unfortunately, all you can do AFAIK is dig out the plastic filler and replace it with some that is a closer match in color. The plastic filler won't change color.

 

[woodster]

you may want to try sanding some mahogany on a belt sander and then mix the sanding dust in gorilla glue( like thicken epoxy) and fill the gouges that way the gorilla glue sands nicely and stains very well ....use a lot of sanding dust in the mix....you also may try FOMAWOOD filler as well ...but it will look more like a filler than not so the sanding dust mix is the best choice IMHO..

regards

woody

 

[CharlieCobra]

When I have to do a repair on wood, such as a scarph or fill a crack. I mix sanding dust from the particular wood in with the epoxy. While it looks dark at first, it evens out under varnish.

 

[Ross]

If you wish to do it properly then you carefully carve out the damaged area and fit a new piece in if you work skillfully it will barely show.

 

[John Howitt]

I always put a coat of finish on before i put in filler , because then you know what colour is that you need to match. You don't get the ugly smears where the filler gets into the grain fills . An alternitive method is to fill all the grain in the piece ,then you will get a consistent colour with no smear marks.
A natural colour filler and add your own tint. The same stuff that they use to tint paint.
A coloured marker pen will cover as well .
I hope this helps.

 

[caguy]

Thanks I took your advice and mixed some of the saw dust from the sanding bag with varnish and made a paste. It took a couple of days to dry but dried hard and sanded well. It was lighter where sanded as would be expected but darkened to match when I applied a layer of varnish over it.
Woodster I was reluctant to use Gorilla glue because it tends to turn white where exposed to air. Have you used Gorilla glue for this purpose yourself? When you said ''You may want to try,'' I wasn't sure if you had actually done it. The drying time would certainly have been better. Since I have a lot of wood work to do one the boat I'll try it on some scrap wood along with the epoxy idea, compare and post results.
Thanks as always for all of your suggestions.