Q. We have begun to use wood with more knots showing in the final product. We finish these knotty pieces and they are flat and smooth. However, after finishing and shipping, we sometimes hear about a customer that says the knots have grown and are protruding up a small bit higher than the surrounding wood. Obviously, the wood is dead so the knots are not growing. Can you explain what is going on?

By the time I routed the profile along the edge, I saw a knot would be visible on the finished project. So here's a fix you can try when you encounter a board like that.

Like most woodworkers, I've used the old recipe of mixing sawdust with glue, using the fine dust from my random orbital sander. But one problem with mixing with glue is that it’s hard to sand.