I need some opinions.... First though, I guess I must tell you what happened. I am on my first build and am pretty excited about it. It's a neck-thru and I have got the body pretty much done except routing the cavity.

Here is my error... I usually leave what I have done of my bass at my apt. Here recently I have been taking it to work and my parents house to "show it off"... I know... I'm a noob... lol Weeellll.... today, I took it to work and my top spalted maple laminate on one of the halves developed small crack about halfway down.

What should I do about it? It's not too bad, but bad enough that I need to do something about it.

I did think of one possible solution... I have a couple small scraps of the spalted maple, and since I'm just doing a natural finish I was thinking of making some really fine saw dust, mixing it with some glue, and filling the crack with it.

Think it would work?

I think so but I'm sure much more experimented people here will give their opinions.

sawdust + wood glue = HIGHLY visible repair

depending on the crack size, you could fill it with superglue (recommended), tinted epoxy (recommended), or you could use epoxy mixed with sanding dust (OK, but you will get small air bubbles in the epoxy)


more important than filling the crack .... you need to determine why this is cracking! did you use wet wood (i.e. wood with a moisture content above 10%) by chance?

all the best,

R

If it's along a spalt seam, CA should work just fine.

I really think it was just taking it back and forth between places... Changes in humidity, I really like it warm when I drive, just being careless...

Wouldn't superglue show up really bad? It wouldn't match the wood at all. And it's not a spalt seam unfortunately. It's all clear wood.

This might just be a crazy idea, but what about turning the crack into a spalt seam... looking at my spalted maple bass, I figure if a crack should appear, I would probably fill it in with walnut dust or something. depending on how much its spalted and how big the crack is, obviously.

Some good photos of the area might help people help you...t

This might just be a crazy idea, but what about turning the crack into a spalt seam... looking at my spalted maple bass, I figure if a crack should appear, I would probably fill it in with walnut dust or something. depending on how much its spalted and how big the crack is, obviously.I was thinking along the same lines. Depending on the actual piece of wood, if it were a thin crack, you might be able to widen it out a little by inserting an xacto blade and tilting it, on alternate sides of the crack, semi-randomly to make the crack "wiggly" looking. Then fill in with anything black.

Of course, I'd do any repair after everything is completely stabilized, otherwise you could be adding a new stress that will erupt in a problem somewhere else.

I really think it was just taking it back and forth between places... Changes in humidity, I really like it warm when I drive, just being careless...

I'll ask again ... did you use wet wood (i.e. wood with a moisture content above 10%) by chance? if your wood was properly dried, I would not expect it to behave like this unless something else also happened that has not been reported here

Wouldn't superglue show up really bad? It wouldn't match the wood at all. And it's not a spalt seam unfortunately. It's all clear wood.

superglue is clear, and is used by many woodworkes to fill imperfections in wood. I use a significant amount of it when working with burl Maple - there's a load of little pin holes that need to be filled prior to applying the sanding sealer (which would make these standout as white spots)

all the best,

R

That's not a bad idea about the black. And I am leaving it at home from now on. No taking it out til it has finish on it.

Here's some pics. Like you can see, it's not horrible, but definitely need to do something about it. I did a quick photoshop to show it filled with black.


http://www.image4you.org/images/39609359.jpg (http://www.image4you.org/v.php?img=39609359.jpg)
http://www.image4you.org/images/38974263.jpg (http://www.image4you.org/v.php?img=38974263.jpg)

No, Rodent, the moisture was at 6 or 7 percent when I laminated it. Checked it right before. It's been about two months since I've done anything to it except some shaping, so I think if it was that it would have happened by now.

btw, thanks for all the comments, everyone. :)

I guess I am just blind....but I seriously stared at those pics for 10 minutes, and could not find the crack.... haha help!

EDIT: ok I think I found it, kinda in the middle, long thin crack. Its not really noticable and when filled in with black it blends right in :)

Yeah, you can see it better looking at the real thing. It really isn't that bad though.

Here's a highlighted pic.

http://www.image4you.org/images/39447236.jpg (http://www.image4you.org/v.php?img=39447236.jpg)

LOL, I stared for 10 minutes and couldn't see anything either.
Something tinted black, like CA or Epoxy should do just fine. It seems pretty thin, so I'd just go with black CA glue, and like people said, it'll blend in just fine.
IN fact, you might like it even better.
Great looking spalt, BTW.....make sure to post pics of the finished product!

Yeah, I guess I'll try that when I get to the finish stage.

I love the spalt too. Here's some pics of what I have so far.

http://www.image4you.org/images/43006347.jpg (http://www.image4you.org/v.php?img=43006347.jpg)
http://www.image4you.org/images/15489739.jpg (http://www.image4you.org/v.php?img=15489739.jpg)
http://www.image4you.org/images/86144188.jpg (http://www.image4you.org/v.php?img=86144188.jpg)

I can't even see it!

I did a bass with a zebrawood top, and after it was glued on the body, it developed a crack from the butt end up to the bridge pickup. It was right where the top was book matched. I widened the crack, took a thin sliver of zebrawood and glued it in. You can't see it if I don't point it out.

That's not counting the worm holes! Wood has defects... just embrace them. My morado topped fretless has a few big worm holes. I just filled them in with black epoxy.

Spalted wood is so full of defects anyway, I'd just fill it with black epoxy.

My vote goes towards black epoxy. It'll go well with the spalt.

The crack looks small enough, that, you can just go on and finish it however you were gonna do it, just watch the crack to make sure it doesn't do anything else (wow, I'm being Mr. State the Obvious tonight).

I built a small table with spalted maple, the same wood as my bass, it was at about 10% when I glued it together and 4 months later it started cracking, now the crack is about 3/16 wide at the middle and runs throughout the whole length of the table, theres also another crack but its smaller. All this wood is from a maple tree I cut a while ago, I guess ill bring the table in the woods and burn it near the tree stump and give it back to nature. wow. deep.