[Ron Ramirez]

Just to bring you folks up to speed...if you recall, I stripped my Tropic 42-761EZ and my 19B back in May.

I then proceeded to get my 41-616 to a point where it was working, but still needs some fine-tuning.

By then, it was June, and the long, relentless heat wave/drought was starting.

Since then...all I've done is to glue a back corner of the Tropic where a glue joint had come loose, and managed to get the front panel free from the rest of the cabinet on the 19B to make it easier to deal with.

Today, I was determined to start the grain fill procedure.

I opened the can of Constantine's wood filler...it was yellowed and all but completely dried out.

The can went straight into the garbage.

And guess what? Constantine's no longer carries their wood (grain) filler in walnut...only Red Mahogany and Black.

So...I ordered some CrystaLac from one supplier...and some Behlens grain filler from another. I'll try both and see which one I like best. Of course this means that, since both are water-based instead of oil-based as with the Constantine's product, I'll probably have another learning curve ahead of me in using this stuff.