a 21st century bench with engineered wood #10: ply-void filling

I will not hide the plywood voids, they will be filled BLUE.

Using an ultra-marine blue powder + water putty, I tried to replicate the color of a bright horizon sky blue.

I found that, since water putty is more cream colored than “white”, if the hue was made too light, it would start to become more of a a blue-gray than a light blue.

After trials I didn’t quite get to the tone I had in mind; but I like where it ended up. I settled on 8 tablespoons of putty to 1/2 teaspoon of ultra-marine.

Though that doesn’t look like much blue in the powder, a bit of water brings it out.

I spent a fair amount of time sealing the surface pores so that the end-grain layers of the ply would not soak up the tint of the filler. I did this with a 1lb cut shellac with an addition of water putty as I found that 3TB of water putty per 12oz of shellac sealed better then shellac alone. After 2 wash coats, I followed with a quick wipe on of danish oil to limit surface adhesion of the filler.

When it dries, it lightens up, but returns to its wet color after some finish is re-applied.

Here, the top is cleaned up with some quick scraping. Next step is sanding down a bit to clean up, then back to 220, and finishing with danish oil.

This board, made for the lower shelf, is almost done.

-- derek / oregon