I just finished turning my 2nd "real" piece, a 10 inch bowl from a block of slabs of teak and jatoba I had glued together. The end grain on the jatoba slabs is pretty rough, even after sanding with 600 grit paper. I had used Clapham's cutting & sanding compound as I had picked up a bottle of the stuff at a woodworking show over the weekend. Any suggestions what I can do to smoothen the end grain or point me to a FAQ ? Bart.
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"rough" as in tearout? as in fuzzy? as in open pores (like oak still can feel rough sometimes because of the open pores)?
Depending on what you mean by "rough", there's all kinds of solutions.
As far as an endgrain filler (if that's what you really need), you can simply make up your own from the sanding dust of the wood (a perfect match) and a clear drying glue. Mix it up and push it into the endgrain. Let it harden and sand it out. It might still not look good though but at least it'll be smooth. You can also just fill up that endgrain with the clear drying glue and sand it down after it dries. It might look "rough" but it'll feel smooth and won't have the (possible) muddled appearance of using the sanding dust along with the glue.
What do you want the piece to look like when all is said and done? Woodworkers usually fill pores with contrasting color fillers for emphasis, similar colored fillers for evenness, or transparent fillers for some shine.
You can make your own mush out of sanding dust and glue, but it'll always look like what it is - not like surrounding wood, just colored like it, and duller than the surround. You can also use something besides glue like a varnish or lacquer to hold the stuff in, which is a little prettier than some big light-scattering polymer.
You can use a stain or mush from a contrasting color wood, rubbing it with some curing oil or your final finish, then sanding off, or wiping off the excess from the surface. Can be pleasing, so look at the technique on some scrap. If you don't practice on scrap, you'll be practicing on your project.
My preferred is to use shellac and some pumice in a technique you can find on the web as "French Polishing." The fill is transparent enough to let you know your pores are pores, and allows a bit of internal reflection for brightness that mush fills, with their light-scattering characteristics, won't.
All of which supposes that you don't care to leave 'em open and natural.
As in fuzzy & open pores, I'm trying to go for the smooth look/feel of the natural wood colour. The first bowl I did came out real nice, I guess some of the wood pieces weren't as dense as the ones I'm working on now. Many thanks for the replies, Bart.
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