well....i looked at all the recomendations and tried ddaniels approach....a bit of wood glue and some sanding over the top of it.

i think this worked out pretty well and most of the gaps i am dealing with were less than a milimeter. a couple that were slightly bigger appear to have come out just fine too.

it was a very fast approach and finished off a number of these minor gaps in a couple hours.

i am probably a week or so away from staining....and as mentioned before....expect to be staining a dark brown....so was not overly concerned about dark areas. the base wood is a dark red cedar to start....so was not trying to match a light color.

will write another note if it looks like a mistake after i stain and expoxy.....but so far so good.