We are doing restoration on our 90+ year old home and using a lot of wood filler to fill old nail holes and cover the nail heads when we replace moulding. Does anyone have any idea what was used as a wood filler before the current synthetic ones were available?

-- Cindy in NY (cjpopeck@worldnet.att.net), September 19, 2001

Answers

since nails were hard to come by,, most went for another way of joining. But,, you could use beeswax with sawdust,, the real fine dust. Another thing was pine tar/sap.

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), September 19, 2001.

I use plumbers putty. I have no idea what was used a century ago.

-- Ed Copp (OH) (edcopp@yahoo.com), September 19, 2001.

Cindy, We used the sanded saw dust mixed with wood glue. Worked fine for us. Winona

-- Winona in MO (thompsonwin45@hotmail.com), September 19, 2001.

For nail holes etc drive in a short piece of thin dowel then plane and sand off flush.

-- john hill (john@cnd.co.nz), September 20, 2001.

my guess is that maybe they didn't put as many nails in the walls and woodwork in the first place. they had more important things to do....like do everything else in the world. and maybe they didn't have time to redecorate everything, paint, etc. so maybe this wasn't as much of an issue, and one or two small holes might not matter in the house. these are the odd things I think about, as I paint, caulk, etc., everything and think of how much time it takes. I am grateful that I don't have to do every tiny thing--grow and thressh the wheat, and grind it and make the bread, and tend to some sort of yeast culture and make all our clothes and do all the laundry by hand (which i did for a while including diapers) and can grab dried beans out of a bag and not have to grow them too (which I grow, but you get the picture) so I have some time to clean the house, paint, have a number of outfits instead of two, etc. I think that they didn't spend the time doing what I do because everything revolved around their daily existence.

-- marcee (thathope@mwt.net), September 20, 2001.

They may well have used plaster. My experience is that the commercial plaster-and cellulose fillers (our brand names Polyfilla or Spakfilla) work beautifully. Do all the rest of the work, then go around and put a dab of oil-paint on each nail-head (plaster rusts iron). When that's dry, fill; let dry, sand, then finish.

-- Don Armstrong (from Australia) (darmst@yahoo.com.au), September 20, 2001.