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pro advice on hardwood repair

15 years ago

Anybody with some experience on repairing pre-finished hardwood?

I need to repair a gouge (2" long) and a deep "corner" ding in an otherwise perfect pre-finished oak floor in a kitchen. (Customer does not want the boards replaced at this point.) Color is your typical average medium stain oak floor (golden oak, maybe?)

Any advice on getting a decent result? Do the repair crayons they sell hold up long enough, or does this require an epoxy or other?

I was leaning toward trying a couple shades of plastic wood (testing first), followed by topping with a dab of polyurethane.

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Comments (5)

ruff12hndl
15 years ago
Plastic wood is not a good idea. Try minwax putty its next to the stain at your hardware store, and comes in many shades, you should probably try to find a clear epoxy to apply with a Q tip after the putty is in place. Be sure to keep the epoxy only on the affected area, you may have to deepen the gouge with a nail set or similiar - this will leave the floor with "scar" that can only be fixed by replacing the board (depends on the customer, if it was me I would replace it), the corner chips will disappear with the putty.
homebound
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks for the reply. I thought the Minwax putty wouldn't last, but maybe it would be an acceptable solution after all. Come to think of it, I have a jar left over from another wood repair job that wasn't closed properly and it did dry out quite solidly.

BTW, ever heard of repairing with hard wax that's melted into place with a hot knife? I read online that there's such a thing for floors.

Thanks again.
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jerry_t
15 years ago
I would like to have a repair kit but the one i want runs several hundred dollars. I would seriously talk them into doing a board replacement this time. If you are careful there's not much to it and virtually invisible.
glennsfc
15 years ago
As Jerry said, the shellac stick repair method can make a virtually invisible and permanent repair. It is the same repair medium that is used to repair dings and scratches in furniture.
homebound
Original Author
15 years ago
Can you describe that "shellac stick repair method" a bit more? Is there a name of this stick, and where can I get it?

Thanks guys.

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