filling staple holes

[leave_notrace]

I am building my first strip canoe out of red wood that I salvaged from a construction job I was involved in. I just finished pulling the millions of staples and am wondering what the best option is for filling the pesky little holes. I have heard two frames of thought about this and am wondering which one is better or if there is a better way alltogether. The first method is to wet the entire canoe with a sponge and dry it with a hair dryer. I am somewhat hesitant about this because i fear that it will leave ugly blotches where the water did not dry evenly. The other method is to mix fine saw dust with watered down wood glue and use it as filler. I am also hesitant to use this method because i am scared that the color will not match compleatly and the holes will be excentuated. Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks

[Noah's]

Sanding dust (not saw dust) with wood glue should work as long as the wood color is reasonably consistent. The mixture tends to dry darker than the original so start with a lighter wood dust, mix in darker, and play with some scrap until you get it right. Some glues will also stain the surrounding wood, so watch out for that.