Unlikely tools for fixing a checked tabletop.Syringes are obviously hard to come by, so I had to rely on a relative who used them to adminster his own medication.
As a web producer here at Fine Woodworking, I find building furniture in the FW workshop to be an invaluable source of online topics. It's as if I get to share the building process with thousands of folks I've never met. Case in point: a small check that opened up in the end of my soon-to-be-finished Shaker writing desk.
The crack emerged after I had applied the first coat of finish, so I didn't have to worry about undoing a great deal of finishing work in order to fix it properly. Phew. I knew I had to address it however. The last thing I wanted to do was "let it go," only to find the check spreading further down the top of the table over time. My solution was to reinforce the check with a spline glued into the end of the table. I followed up with a bit of cyanoacrylate (gel-style) squirted into the crack on the tabletop. This was done, not to reinforce the wood (that was achieved with the spline) but rather, to fill in the gap between the two halves of the check.Unless you're a doctor, syringes are pretty hard to come by. You can use a glue syringe but I've always found them difficult to use in really tine cracks like this. Luckily, I had a relative who was receiving shots at home. That said, I only had one to use—I had to make it count!
Rout out a spline slot—Using a trim router outfitted with a 1/8-in. straght-cutting bit, I cut a 3/4-in.-deep spline slot that intersects the crack in the end of the tabletop.
Square the slot—Next, I squared up the ends of the slot using a 1/8-in. chisel. 
Prep Your Spline—I was careful to use wood from the same boards used to construct my tabletop, for the spline. Hopefully, the expansion and contraction between the top and the spline will be equal. Also, the since spline is only about 1-in. wide, I don't expect it to expand enough to force the check open again.
Glue and plane it flush—After gluing in the spline, I used a block plane to bring it flush with the table, and just kissed it with a bit of light sanding afterwards. That should serve to reinforce the joint. 
Address the tabletop surface—For the visible hairline crack in my top, I wanted to address the "feeling of the crack." I wasn't concerned with the fact that I could see a small line but I did want to ensure that a finger or hand running over the tabletop didn't feel the valley between the two halves of the crack. In the end, I used a syringe to squirt just a bit of gel-style cyanoacrylate into the crack, smoothing it with a card scraper after it dried.
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