Anyone who’s ever done much woodworking has run into the problem of knots, imperfections and nail holes in their wood. If we could just build things without having to deal with these little issues, it would sure make our world easier, as filling the wood, by any means, never seems to come out as good as the original.
There are a couple of ways of filling wood. The first, and most common, is to use a wood filler, before finishing the wood. If you’re painting the wood, that’s no problem, as they are all sandable and accept paint well. The problem comes in when you want to stain and varnish the wood. Even the best of “stainable wood fillers” don’t accept the stain as well as the wood does. To get around this, you typically need to either work with your stain a little bit extra, possibly staining the patched area twice, while the rest of it is stained only once.
These best wood filler in 2022 come in both water and solvent-based versions. Traditionally, solvent-based fillers have surpassed water based ones in their quality; but recent advances in materials technology has greatly improved the quality of the water based ones. Besides, they’re much easier to clean up.
Solvent-based wood fillers also tend to dry out quicker than water-based ones. So depending upon the dry time you need and the storage time as well, you may want to take that into consideration as you make your selections. Some of the solvents used in these solvent-based fillers can stain woods, so you want to be careful how you apply them.
The other way of filling imperfections and nail holes in wood is with colored putties or wax. Putties are typically used for filling nail holes in interior trim after installing your woodwork. Waxes are the common way of repairing small scratches and dings in furniture, without having to refinish the whole piece. Both of these systems allow you to color match the filler to the existing grain of the wood. This can be especially tricky with woods that have an obvious grain pattern or a lot of contrast in the grain pattern.
I even use putties and waxes for non-conventional applications, instead of even trying to stain normal wood fillers. Unless I’m trying to fill a really large area (something I try very hard to avoid) I find that I can get a better match by using putties and waxes, than I can by using “stainable” wood fillers, whether water or solvent based.