Plugging Away

Most of the glulam we manufacture and post about is Southern Yellow Pine. Using Southern Yellow Pine on the East Coast has some economical advantages, but we do offer Douglas Fir as well. Douglas Fir can require a bit more attention during the finishing process. In order to meet the AITC standard for Architectural Grade glulam we need to follow some rules. 

While the natural appearance of the grain is allowed, loose knots and voids over 3/4″ require us to either fill them with wood-toned filler or a clear wooden plug that matches the grain. We opt for the clear wooden plug as it looks better, stains the same, and can move naturally with the wood over time. Douglas Fir requires quite a bit of plugging because of the number of knots in the material.

Above you can see the blue plugs in this Douglas Fir arch. They are painted blue so we don’t miss one when finishing the beam. Dan, star of previous blog posts, will go back over the plugs and hand plane them down to match the textural finish of the arch so when staining or sealing you won’t notice them.