As far as leaks and structural strength go, you don't have to fill the stitch holes. The epoxy from wetting out the layer of glass will plug them. However, unplugged stitch holes will show up as dark dots.

This freaks some people out, but it's a normal artifact of the construction process. It's the same as rivet heads or weld lines on metal ships, the ridges on clinker-built or lapstrake boats, the grooves carvel-planked boats, the copper nailheads on wooden boats, etc. It's not a defect to be ashamed of and hidden, it's just an honest statement of the materials and build techniques that were used.

The people who are trying to build a floating wooden dining room table instead of a boat will try to hide the holes by plugging them with various putties, toothpicks and what have you, but as you say the color match is an elusive target. The only guaranteed way to hide them is to cover them with something opaque.

Laszlo

Hi Mike, 

i have some experience with holes....i have built stitch and glue brite (varnish only) with stitch holes and my cedar boats have holes where the staples were used to hold the strip against the form.

for me the answer is 'from what perspective'.....and "how does the eye work".   so my short answer is, as a practical matter, nobody see stitch and glues holes....they 'disappear' unless you go looking for them.   and with respect to laszlo, i have never seen them look like 'rivets' from a normal view/perspective.  to see them, you have to be up close and looking for them.

the picture below is fairly high resolution, brite sheawater i built.   i did nothing to hide the wire holes (i did generally try to be careful and make them no larger than required).

as you can see, from a couple steps away, you basically do not see them.  now if you come up really close and look really hard.....you might be able to see some   you can try enlarging the photo posted here (open it up on a seperate tab and enlarge) and see what you see....but you will probably not see them even then.

now if i tell you where they are, you may now 'see them'  which is in the pic below.....so consider looking on an enlarged photo before scrolling down.

so here is the enlarged photo with some of the wire holes circled:

so as a practical matter, i would just let them fill with epoxy......there are a lot of other things that are more going to 'catch' the eye on a brite build then these little holes.

from a 'how the eye works'....your eye will be drawn to the seam.....and away from these surrounding little dots ....they are just not close enough to one another typically for the eye to start to recognize them.

that said, if you do want them to disappear even fuller, i would recommend a non oil based furniture repair putty that you color match to the wood that you have.   i have some experience in furniture repair using these kits which come with a variety of colors and you can plug each little hole and a pass or two with a sanding block....and folks would be very very hard pressed to find your holes.  (do do a practice round of your color choice after epoxy is applied because epoxy will change the color of the surrounding mahogony at a different rate then the putty)  so you need it to match after epoxy.  i have done it....its a bit of additional labor....and you can make them disappear even more.

hope this was helpful.

h

just a little extra on the 'wood repair kit'

an example (not an endorsement) of what i mean can be seen at this link:

https://www.amazon.com/Wood-Repair-Kit-Fillers-Furniture/dp/B0C9TTKHSP/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?crid=13C0TV2DG56DZ&keywords=furniture+repair+kit&qid=1705760936&sprefix=furniture+rep%2Caps%2C87&sr=8-2-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1   

this has a lot of colors....but this gets across the idea of 'color match'

now in this case, you want to start with a sample to test your work.  so you would create a bunch of wire holes in a test piece of okoume.

find the color match and try some different shades....you will want to try, typically,  some slightly darker shades as the putty will not absorb the epoxy like the straight mahogony.

then after the putty drys, coat the test work with a coat of epoxy - one brush over is all you need becuase that is the color that the panel will take....and it will be darker than the wood pre-epoxy.   pick from your sample the putty color that most 'disappeared'.

h

I guess I didn't say it as well as I meant to. I didn't mean that they looked like rivets. I meant that just as riverts are part of metal ship construction, wire holes are part of S&G boat construction, nothing that needs hiding.

Laszlo

The only stitch holes I notice on the kayak I built are the ones with smudges of wood filler around them (I tried to color match and created a major hassle). I'd just fill them with flour-thickened (peanut butter) epoxy and remove the excess immediately. I guess I occasionally see the hole I forgot to fill too (can see sunlight poking through sometimes).

   Thank you all for responding!  From the picture Hspira posted, the stitch holes could look like darker spots in the wood, such as knots, to the untrained eye.  I am not going to try and match the color to fill them.  They are merely artifacts of the construction method as Laszlo pointed out.