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I have some really unusual wood that I would like to build a guitar with, but it has a few worm holes in it. (back and sides) What would you do??

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Reguards,

Ken H

Ken my friend I fill my worm holes with Allied's excellent method:

http://www.alliedlutherie.com/filling_a_hole.htm

I would leave them. Think of them as mini sound ports

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Depends on the wood. Honestly if it was really valuable in the state of b/s than I would fill the holes and get on with it. If it were something that was readily available, I might be more inclined to make bindings out of the sides and bridge plates, headstock veneers, rosettes etc..

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Thanks for the info Hesh!  That is sort of what I had in mind. This is some really unusual wood and I REALLY want to build with it. Those pesky worm holes have to be dealt with somehow though...

Thanks again!

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Reguards,

Ken H

In dark areas, I fill with epoxy tinted with charcoal.  I had to fill the ones in this Brazilian I am doing in order to keep all the sound from leaking out.

What Hesh said/recommended. Usually ends up looking like a tiny pin knot. I use the sanded wood dust, packed in and then the thin cyano glue wicked in. One caveat: Don't use accelerator on the cyano...it may foam up and give you those ugly white "Tiny Bubbles" (as Don Ho used to sing)
I hate when it does that, but don't ask how I know!

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Hank Mauel

    I fill worm holes by placing a drop of medium viscosity CA glue right in the hole and then sand over the hole with 220 grit on a block.

    This allows the fresh dust to mix immediately with the medium CA creating a nice filler. It will typically take two times of this process to fill holes to level.

   After bending, the plugs of dust and CA can sometimes pop a little or open up so I just do the same thing once more to level them bfore sanding the body for finish prep.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

Do it like Kevin and does well. Most of wood I had to do it with though was imbuia(sp). But worked well and such a pretty wood, that shines nice with finish. Tell neighbors though it is legal wood and not the magic weed it can smell like

I've done it by sanding wood into the hole and then adding thin CA, and also by putting medium CA in and sanding into that. I've also used epoxy instead of CA.

I have some wood like this now that is too nice to not use. The only tough thing is that often when those little bugs eat through the wood, the surrounding wood gets stained a bit darker, and that's pretty hard to cover up.

Hey Stan, you'd better not be smokin' any of that er, wood.

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The link that Hesh posted is where it is at! I have used that technique many times on boats to fill worm & nail holes (on reclaimed wood.)

Hi Ken,

Is the wood dark? If so, you already have the answer.

If the wood is light, you may want to adjust the method. Seems to me that the lighter the wood, the more a glue+sawdust plug shows up. And, you may not know how much it will show up until the finish has aged a bit. (My experience with this is fine furniture, not yet guitars.) For example, light blond woods like Maple may make a dust/glue plug that is much more brown than blond.

If the wood is light colored:
Do you have a little bit of the wood as a scrap to practice on? If so, drill a few small holes, and try filling with dust/CA, dust/ARG, and dust/epoxy then let it dry, sand, and spray some lacquer on from a spray can for a quick test. If you're not happy with the results, you can put on some magnifying glasses (well, I would need to), and cut a tiny plug from scrap material as close to the correct color as possible. The plug you cut does not need to be round, in fact it will usually hide better if it is more like a tiny football shape. After the plug is cut, modify the worm hole shape to match the plug. As someone mentioned, sometimes the worm's chemistry will darken the area outside the hole. The only way to make those disappear is to cut the hole bigger and plug it.

If you don't think you can make the holes disappear, you could highlight them as "features" or "beauty marks" rather than trying to hide them. I'd probably do that in Ambrosia Maple, for instance.

Please give us a before and after photo, so we can see how you handle it.

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Here is what I am working with. I really dont know how this will work for making invisible worm holes, but I just have to use this wood. As far as I know nobody has built a guitar with box elder??

I bought this wood and paid a fortune for it. I didnt notice the worm holes when I got it because the wood was rough sawn and the holes are very small. Now that I have resawed it, they show up. I had planned on selling some of this wood in order to recover some of my costs, but I dont feel right about selling wood with worm holes in it.

 

I think you can see the holes in the third picture.

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Reguards,

Ken H

by the way, my lexan template is laying upside down, so dont pay attention to the tone bars going the wrong way.

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Reguards,

Ken H

Ken here's some interesting read on that red stain from some of my cached info. It's only temporary and will fade to the brown color you see with it. That brown was once red. Box elder is a step above Buckeye in density. I pay around $3.00 a pound for good, solid box elder burl but the trees without burl aren't usually good for commercial use and are not salvaged generally. Box Elder is the weakest of all maples.

Ambrosia maple and Ambrosia limba are caused by the Ambrosia beetle and at least one hole per color streak is a given.

(Quoted from a scientific study)

Abstract

Fusarium reticulatum (F. negundi) has been suggested as the cause of red stain in boxelder (Acer negundo), but the role of the fungus in producing the pigment has never been confirmed. This study elucidated the cause of red stain using a series of wounding and inoculation experiments. Fungal colonization and stain development were examined in 20 wounded boxelder trees at 8, 12, 52, and 64 weeks after wounding. Fusarium solani was isolated from 67 to 83% of the stained, wounded tissue. Boxelder trees were inoculated in the field with F. acuminatum, Hypsizygus tessulatus, or left not inoculated to serve as the control. Eight weeks after inoculation, F. solani was isolated from 67, 17, and 33% of the wounds treated with F. acuminatum, H. tessulatus, and the control, respectively. All wounds had typical red stain 12 weeks after inoculation including those inoculated with H. tessulatus and the control. Fusarium reticulatum was not isolated from any wounded or inoculated boxelder tree. The stain’s ubiquitous presence in all wounded tissue and the inability of F. solani isolates obtained from boxelder to stain boxelder red in wood block studies indicates that red stain is most likely produced by the tree as a nonspecific host response to wounding.

Introduction

A ubiquitous red stain can be found in the sapwood of living boxelder (Acer negundo L.) throughout the range of the species. Because the stain is so frequently encountered, it is often considered to be a reliable characteristic for identifying boxelder wood (3,7). It has been reported to occur in the wood within the main stem, in roots greater than 5 cm in diameter and in branches greater than 2.5 cm in diameter (Fig. 1) (6). Pigmentation is localized around branch scars, frost cracks and wounds caused by insects or animals, such as sapsuckers (Sphyrapicus varius) (3,7). It is thought that these localized areas of discolored wood coalesce over time creating a large, central stained column within the tree (Fig. 2). Colors range from light pink to dark red, but the stain fades over time when exposed to light. Red stain in boxelder is of special interest to woodworkers who use the attractive stained wood for decorative purposes (Fig. 3). The stain does not appear to cause significant loss of structural integrity in the sapwood (6).

Hmmmmm.. Interesting read Larry!

I had really hoped I could produce a guitar that kept the red coloring because of it's resemblance of a "flame".

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Reguards,

Ken H

Some time back I offered some Brazilian to Martin.  Their wood buyer and I discussed worm holes, she takes a paperclip and pokes it into the worm hole to determine it's direction, size etc.  They do purchase wood with worm holes if the angle of the hole is not too severe.  If it goes straight through, they feel they can deal with it, if the angle is acute, they reject it for obvious reasons.  So, that may be one way to decide if you want to build with a wormhole in a otherwise good piece of wood.  As rare woods get even more rare, wormholes are probably going to be dealt with more and more.
Best
Bruce

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Bruce Herrmann
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

Even if the nice red streaks fade to brown, it will still be an attractive wood.  The worm holes are pretty darn small, I'd be inclined too fill them solid, maybe even use black.  You probably won't be able to hide them convincingly, so may as well be honest about them.

If you're already set on using this wood, then use it and be happy.

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