[Woodworkers] So I was gifted this bar.

Richard Allen via Woodworkers woodworkers at lists.sawdusters.org
Thu Feb 25 06:28:54 PST 2016


Hi Doug,

Good luck with refurbishing the bar.  I think the design is doomed to failure.  Seasonal wood movement is going to tear it apart.

If I were given this bar to fix I would suggest that it would be cheaper and more successful to make a bar from scratch.  If the demand was "fix it" I would set the expectation that the bar will almost certainly be falling apart within a year despite my efforts.

On with giving the bar its best chance at life.  Epoxy is a must.  Coat all sides with epoxy.  That is a slow cure epoxy which has a good chance to soak in.  Before the epoxy fully cooked I would apply a second coat to all surfaces.  If you put the second coat on before the first coat is fully cured then the second coat will form a molecular bond to the first coat.  Give the epoxy a couple (or more) days to fully cure.  Sand off all the surface epoxy.  At this point you have hopefully "stabilized" the wood.  There should be no seasonal wood movement.  Two coats of epoxy is you best chance at making the wood impervious to moisture.  

At this point you can fill the cracks however you like.  My choice would be to rough up the inside of the cracks the best I could.  Perhaps some small carving burrs.  Apply a coat of freshly mixed epoxy.  Add epoxy filler and color (black ink if you like) and apply that to the cracks.  You should end up with a glass smooth surface that will hold up well to most abuse.  Epoxy doesn't respond well to heat.  So putting hot pans on the bar top could result in an epoxy failure.  Epoxy can be dissolved with prolonged exposure to alcohol (kinda hard to keep alcohol away from a bar).  So you should select a finish which will hold up to alcohol.  Poly would be my choice, 2 thin coats.  As for a more consistent dark color you might try toneing the poly.

Please note that if you go a different way and the bar has a failure, don't think that epoxy would have prevented failure.  Epoxy is a lot of time, money and effort for only a small improvement in chances of success.

> On Feb 25, 2016, at 8:04 AM, Doug via Woodworkers <woodworkers at lists.sawdusters.org> wrote:
> 
> My girlfriends family decided that considering my health, they would get together and give me a bar. They found this at the Brass Armadillo and as you can see, it is in less than stellar condition. I had to remove the top coat so my buddy could run the top through the big timesaver sander where he works.  Naturally I had to strip the front if I ever hoped to make them match.  This is a homemade piece and I’m sure the guy/girl put a lot of time into making it but unfortunately just wasn’t quite there when it came to wood choices.  I have many large cracks I need to deal with.  He/she even put bondo in one section.  Before I saw how bad the cracks were I had thought of using epoxy and India ink to fill the gaps. I plan to make this much darker (dark walnut) to make it try to match the pieces in the place it is going.  
> My question is, since I have so many cracks to deal with, should I change my strategy and go with a filler or stick with the black epoxy?  
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