Rant: Threw $80 at a fancy grain filler that ruined my walnut table project

Bought that expensive water-based grain filler last month and it cracked all over after one coat, wasted the whole weekend sanding it back down and now I'm out the money and the time - has anyone else had bad luck with those pre-mixed fillers?

3 comments

3 Comments

terrywilson19d ago

Man that sucks big time, I feel your pain on this one lmao. Had a similar thing happen with a can of that expensive ready-mix stuff a few years back on a mahogany desk I was building and it looked like a dried up riverbed after the first coat. Ended up having to hit it with a belt sander and start over with some old school epoxy based filler I mixed myself, which took forever but actually held up. These pre-mixed fillers seem to be hit or miss depending on the humidity and wood type I swear. Sorry you got burned on the walnut project though, that's a nice hardwood to mess up.

noranguyen18d ago

The last time I tried filling cracks in a piece of walnut, it ended up looking like a road map of a place I never want to visit. Spent more time sanding than building, and the dust still haunts my garage. At least your desk story gives me hope that one day I'll learn to stop buying the fancy premade stuff.

lilycraig18d ago

Respectfully, I actually love the character from filled cracks in walnut dust - it tells a story the premade stuff never does. You just have to lean into it instead of fighting it with sandpaper.