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Plugging Holes in the Table Top
Donald Matthews • Aug 20, 2020
Pallet Wood Kitchen Table
Smoothing the Table Top
A smooth and flat table top is important. Before I get into plugging
the nail holes and other voids in the palletwood table top, I need to get some of the rough planning done. There were a couple boards that were’nt the same thickness as the others. So when I glued it up, I made sure the bottom of the top was as even and smooth as I could. Then I went back and leveled it out with the hand planes. It’s easier to knock down the taller boards with the hand plane, then level and smooth things out. As I said, this is just the first run with the plane to get it level. I’ll be coming back to get it smooth after I filled a few of the voids with epoxy, and the nail holes with plugs.
Filling the Nail Holes with Plugs
First I matched a Forstner
bit with the size of the plugs and put it in a drill, which I then used to bore the plug hole where the nail holes are. I placed the point of the bit in each hole and bored to the depth I desired. The nail holes in the boards were not lined up very well. When they put these pallets together, I’m sure the idea of someone building a a table out of it was the furthest thing on their minds. Getting it done in a hurry and moving on is the idea in that job. So being exact wasn’t an option from the beginning. It will simply add to the rustic look of the finished table. I just did the best I could and got the holes bored into the table.
I filled the hole in sections, doing 6 or eight holes at a time. Just because I get bored doing the same task over and over again. I put some glue in the hole and then pushed the plug in. Next was a couple taps with a mallet to get them seated well. Then I moved on to the next hole. Actually I used a hammer. I simply place a small scrap of wood over the plug to keep from damaging the table top and tapped the plug in. Mallet or hammer works, I do recommend using the scrap block of wood which ever tool you use. It just hurts your feelings to get this far in a project only to have a deep dent to deal with that could have been avoided.
The next step is to trim the plugs down flush to the table top. This is done best and easiest with a flush cut saw. However, at the time I didn’t have one available so I used the hand plane. The problem with that is you’re working yourself far more than with the flush-cut saw and it’s easy for the plug to get tear out below the depth of the hole. And that just gives you another hole to patch. It can be done as long as you pay attention to which way the grain of the plug is running, but the same problem occurs even if you pay attention. Once you get the plug cut flush, you can run the plane over it all you want to and have very little risk of tearing the plug out.
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