Different techniques and materials can be used to repair wood finishes with gouges or deep scratches. Damaged areas can be filled with a range of wood fillers. Anything from colored wax sticks, wood putty, furniture wax, drops of finish, and burn in sticks made of shellac or lacquer.
There are also many things to consider when determining which will be best for your restoration project. Wood finish repairs blend in best when you have factored in color, body, texture and sheen. For example, you can have a perfect color match, but if the texture or sheen is off, it will be noticed.
This page shows the basic process in repairing a scratch with a burn in lacquer stick.
Burn in repairs are usually done on existing wood finishes with a hot knife (iron) and are mastered only through experience. I don’t recommend trying first time or practicing on a dining table.
To show how we repair scratches in wood finishes with burn in, we are working on the crest rail of an arm chair here. This chair is one of 6 new mahogany arm chairs. For whatever reason the maker decided to put this one distress line (as they call it) right in the middle of this one crest rail – wow.
Anyways, the client was not impressed and we were asked to fix the furniture.
The existing finish on this chair is an open pore lacquer finish with a satin to gloss sheen. The wood is stained in a traditional mahogany color. In our favor the damage is in the direction of the grain and although open pore, the finish has some pretty good body.
Filling with putty, touching up and polishing to blend in is an option. But through my own experience I know that a burn in repair is a step up and will blend in better on this project. Filling with a like material (lacquer) is a plus and will minimize the amount of touch up.
The damaged area is filled by melting in a lacquer burn in stick with a burn in iron. It dries hard instantly and does not shrink.
The basic idea is to fill only the damage and as little as the surrounding area as possible. It takes practice to know when you should stop. The existing finish is at risk with every pass of the hot knife.
Things to watch for are trapped air bubbles and most importantly not melting the existing finish. Through practice one can learn the best knife temperature, how not to pull out what you’ve already filled, and getting a smooth fill in as few passes as possible.
After all is filled the area is sanded flush.
Sounds simple, but this is where it can really go wrong. If sanding is too aggressive (it doesn’t take much) you can cut through the existing finish and color. This will just add more work. Also we want to maintain the open pore finish on this restoration project.
We use wet/dry 400 and finer grits to sand burn in repairs. We also keep area wet with Rosini’s Rejuvenator while sanding.
With burn in you have to look closely from different angles to make sure all is flush. The final step (polishing) will magnify any ridges.
By repairing the scratch with this technique we now have minimal touch up and polishing to blend all together.
Completed job shows a good wood finish repair that blends well in color, body, texture and sheen.
Wood finish repair and furniture restoration for Lakeville CT client.
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