Exposed Dowels Too Dark – Question of the Week
This week’s question comes from John. He writes:
Hey Marc. As usual, I have another question! :) I cut some maple dowels from the same piece of stock to put in the center of the rear vise jaw, so they’d be invisible. And they really were quite hidden, UNTIL I put on the finish and then they jumped right out, especially the ring around the edges. Any tips how I could’ve avoided that?
And here was my response:
“Hey John. Excellent work! I really like how the bench turned out. As to the dowel contrast, you will most likely always have that problem. Remember that the dowel is endgrain, while the face of the jaw is face grain. So when finish hits it, the end grain sucks more in and becomes darker. This is nearly impossible to prevent with dowels. Usually, the easiest way to prevent end grain color contrast is to sand the endgrain 2 grits higher than the face grain. This will prevent excessive finish absorption and will lead to an even color. But how can we ever do this with a dowel?? So instead of preventing, lets come up with a completely different strategy. How about a plug, instead of a dowel? Pick up a basic set of plug cutters and you will have all of your common sizes. Then you can cut your plugs out of face grain. And if you orient the face grain in the proper direction, paying close attention to detail, you should have a well-hidden plug. Good luck!”
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