invisible repair.

[Joe Williams]

I'm recycling an old piece of wood for a guitar top (lightly spalted Maple). From it's previous incarnation, there are 4 little (less than 1/8 inch) screw holes that there was no acceptable way to exclude. Who has the best method for patching them?

[Steve Senseney]

You can use a plug cutter (or cut with a chisel) and inlay intact wood into the holes.

You can place the holes in a place where hardware (pickups or controls) cover the defect.

You can place inlays of interesting wood design, or pearl into the materials.

If you use Hot hide glue, the glue lines will nearly disappear. Light colored maple may be the hardest wood to hide glue lines however.

Always practice on scrap first.

[Joe Williams]

Acoustic, so no hardware. Don't think it's a place where contrasting inlay makes much sense, but I'll think more about that.

[John E Giarrizzo]

Joe,

I know you said it is no place for contrasting inlay, but this is what I did for a piece of maple salvaged from a kitchen table that had screw holes in it. At first I thought of just plugging with a contasting wood, but didn't like it, so put an inlay in.

Not quite invisible, but maybe something to think about.

[Michael Lewis]

Spalted maple for an acoustic guitar top? From a structural perspective there are much better candidates.

[Mario Proulx]

John, great job on the fiddle!

[John E Giarrizzo]

Thanks Mario.

Hopefully give Joe some ideas on using recycled material. Almost everything I build is from recycled or non-standard material.

[Daryl Kosinski]

How about ripping along the grain right through the hole jointing and regluing. No more holes and almost a grain match. A picture would be nice.

Another thought would be to countersink the hole, make a wood look alike flat head screw head, slotted or Philips, glue that in the hole, why hide it make it a feature. Or even cut off a brass screw and glue it in.

If someone asks why just say you were screwing around.

[Steve Senseney]

I love the inlay on the violin!

[John E Giarrizzo]

Thanks Steve.

[Clay Schaeffer]

With a small carving tool you could gouge a small irregular shape, fill it with wood, and with creative use of a sharpie add some Faux spalting to camouflage the fill. Another possibility - You could cross cut some twigs and inlay them into the holes. they will appear to be small knots in the wood. I have done that to repair defects in furniture.
As small as they are, just leaving them might look as good as anything else. When I have bug holes in rosewood I just fill them with black epoxy (or not). They fade into the beauty of the wood.