I was going through the stash of wood that I have, looking at what was roughed out and ready to turn, what was still waiting to be roughed, and how much checking the half logs had that were stacked in the garage.  At the bottom of the pile, I found a walnut bowl that I had started to rough turn, but found a flaw in the wood.  A tree branch had apparently started to grow, but must have been cut or broken off and the tree grew around it.  From the outside of the bowl, it looked like it would be barely noticeable.  From the inside, however, there was this half rotten spot that would need to be “fixed”.  Apparently, I had decided it wasn’t worth the effort and threw it in a box to dry.

Earlier me would have thrown it in the burn pile.  Lacking both imagination and skill, a flawed piece of wood would be a “give up and find something else to do” kind of moment.  Current me said, “there is no better wood to turn that a piece of walnut”, followed quickly by “I can fix this”.  There were two options.  I could mix up some kind of colored epoxy and turn the divot in the wood into a feature, or take a more traditional approach to fill the hole.  Since the spot wasn’t that big, adding one tiny blot of color didn’t seem to make much sense, so I opted for the traditional approach of mixing walnut dust with CA glue and sanding until the surface was smooth and the repair couldn’t be felt.  This is the result.