I think it would show up as a dark line counter to the grain/figure around the ring. You could accent it by gluing a piece of contrasting veneer in each joint and then it becomes a character of the design rather than what might be viewed as a flaw. Just a suggestion...

David

 

Visible gaps should be unacceptable. Just sayin' -
But if it's unavoidable then it'd be less noticeable if the same color as the wood.

 

After thinking about this, I think I'm going to need to roll the dice. Even though the grain lines are pretty straight, they're not as straight as the joint would be and coloring the gaps will make them more obvious.

Great idea on the veneer, but I don't think it will work on this project.

With that in mind, any ideas on how to make all eight joints perfect? When you're making 16 cuts of 22.5 degrees each, even the tiniest inaccuracy will make one of the pieces not fit perfectly. I see two small gaps, the worst of them is .012

What do y'all think?

 

Tinting the epoxy will do a LOT to hide small gaps. The key there is small though, if you can slip a sheet of paper in there sure, but not if you can slip a piece of wood. As far as what to use to color it, use the wood itself. Sand a scrap piece with some 120 grit, collect the powder, use it as filler in the epoxy. Works a treat, i do it all the time.

Again though, the key here is making the gaps as small as possible. Larger gaps will look weird if the color match is completely perfect, but smaller gaps will blend in with the grain when done right

 

The problem with doing any kind of filling with Zebrawood is that it is so variegated with light/dark streaks. No matter which color you choose as a filler it's going to contrary to something in the wood.

When I do segments like that, ones that really have to be tight, I cut them as closely as possible and then use the sanding disc on my 6x48 sander. But I don't turn it on (unless I need to take a lot off). I put the piece up against the disc and turn the sanding belt by hand to very lightly and slowly remove material. Doing it this way I can get extremely tight joints. I'd love to tell you they come off the miter saw or table saw that way but they don't, not for me anyway.

David

 

Use segmenter techniques on this. Cut and glue in half circles then gently sand the flats of each half to a perfect fit and glue up.

 

“Use segmenter techniques on this. Cut and glue in half circles then gently sand the flats of each half to a perfect fit and glue up”

This sounds like a great idea. How do you clamp the half circles?

 

Use all of the pieces, just don't put any glue on the center pairs.

Sent from my LG-H910 using Tapatalk

 

The joints should be well fitted or you risk the joint coming apart while turning. Then if the joint is well fitted there shouldn't be a need to color it. Anything you would use to color the glue would weaken the glue so I certainly wouldn't color glue intended to put in a lathe.

 

I'm gluing up 8 pieces of zebrawood for a turning project. Each piece is cut at 22.5° and will make a hexagon 4" wide by 4" tall that I will later turn.

I think that you are making an Octagon.

Make a bunch of test cuts to be sure that you saw is really cutting at 22.5°. If you can't get to the accurate 22.5° then you may have to resort to using a chamfer bit in a router table. Cut your pieces to width and about ½" thicker. Then use a 22.5° chamfer bit. Finally use a planer to get down to the thickness so that the pieces can be assembled.

 

The pieces are already cut, so that ship has sailed. I “clamped” it up by wrapping it tightly with electrical tape. When it’s wrapped up that way, There are two spots where there’s a gap of about .012 and I think I could get those out if there was a better way to clamp it. Of course once there’s glue in there, it’s going to be slippery as a greased pig and harder to spot where the gap is.

 

I'd use the sanding disc I mentioned to get those joints perfect. You can clamp it with a large hose clamp.

Here's the last one I did (thought I had a photo but had to do a screenshot of a video I had) -

David

 

In case anyone is interested to know how this turned out.

I ended up wrapping it with rubber tape to hold it together while the Epoxy cured.

You can see a glue line at the 12:00 position on the photo, but I think I can live with it. Much of it will get drilled out anyway.