[alador]

A few weeks ago I finished this knob stick make from a trunk section and limb of Autumn Olive. All went well until I hung it up for a couple of days to let the finish cure. When I went back to check on it the knob had through and through radial cracks. After the requisite period of mourning I decided to attempt a rescue so I drilled a small hole dead center almost all the way through and and filled it with thin superglue and I did it repeatedly until it stopped soaking in and filled the hole. After three weeks it is still stable and solid so SI thought I would post this in case it helped anyone else faced with the same situation. I will update later if anything changes.

 

[Rodney]

Looks like you got it fixed. Nice looking stick. I'm not familiar with Autumn Olive. Is it a difficult wood to season?

Rodney

 

[gdenby]

Good post. A few weeks ago I bought some Blufixx fast set plastic-ey patch and repair stuff. Sets up in seconds under a small wavelength blue light. Seemed to work OK, and I sanded it down. Within a few days it had swollen out of the filled gaps, and when I went to sand it more, it came out.

 

[Stickie]

Hi I understand that Super Glue & Bicarbonate of Soda makes a good filler... Not tried this myself

 

[alador]

Looks like you got it fixed. Nice looking stick. I'm not familiar with Autumn Olive. Is it a difficult wood to season?

Rodney

This is really my first Autumn Olive stick. I have several others in the pipeline and they do seem to take well to steam straightening but the jury's still out on how well they dry. I just have so much of it here that I thought I should give it a few tries.

My thinking with the thin superglue was to use a little at a time, letting it soak out into the cracks and stabilize the wood and then fill if necessary. Did not end up having to use any additional filler.

 

[Batakali]

Good idea! I may have said this before but I like to use wood glue mixed with sawdust and sanding leavings from the stick. Beutiful colour on the stick by the way.looks like blackthorn, is it a actual olive species?

 

[alador]

No, Autumn Olive's botanical name is Elaeagnus umbellata, true olive is Olea europaea. Autumn Olive has little red berries that have a lot of Lycopene but I don't find the taste that great. It's actually a pretty hard, sturdy wood. A bit heavier than most but very comfortable to use.

 

[Rodney]

Sounds like a great wood for sticks to me. I like a little heft to mine. For whatever reason I equate heavy with sturdy and secure even though I know light can be sturdy too.

I'd make a terrible airplane engineer.

Rodney

 

[Deltaboy1984]

Great looking repair.