fixing a ding

This month's Fine Woodworking is exceptional, with articles about thin kerf blades, lots about hand planes, and an article about fixing minor defects in wood. It is a technique I've used many times in the past, and since I had a small and distracting defect in the lid of one of the boxes, I decided to use it again. You make a small diamond shaped piece of wood in a matching color, then place it over the defect, trace around it and chisel out the space for it to fit. I used a 1/4 inch Forstner bit in the drill press to remove most of the waste before chiseling. This provided a target depth and made it much easier. Then I glued the diamond of matching wood in place. Use a pencil to sketch in some of the grain to complete the effect. While attempting this technique on multicolored spalted maple is not as effective as when used on more uniform colored stock, you can see that it works! The photo at the top shows the ding. Photos below show the fix and the result. If I weren't pointing at it, you wouldn't see it.