Well I did it. I offered to refinish a friends cherry dinning table that someone had scratched, and worse yet someone had refinished and sanded against the grain at one time so it looked just horrible.
Certainly I could not make it worse, right?
Wrong, I sanded through the veneer in two places as I was sanding out the scratches and off the old finish. So now I have two areas about one inch in diameter without cherry veneer. Short of redoing the entire veneer top of the table, are there any tricks as to either getting the sub veneer layer to take up any stain so it does not show so horribly, or is there a way to patch a small area of veneer? It would seem difficult to cut a small square of veneer out and fill it in, but maybe this is an approach that works if one knows how? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Marc
Replies
Marc,
Here is a link to a article that will explain the best way to fix this. It isn't as hard as you might think, it just takes a little time and patience.
http://www.hardwoodlumberandmore.com/TipSheets/VeneerRepair.html
thanks to both of you for the quick response. it sounds like a good solution and one that i can handle.
marc
Just for anyone thinking to repeat this. Removing old finish off of furniture is much better done with chemical stripping than sanding. Veneer is so thin, particularly on relatively recent furniture, that all sanding must be kept very light. Scratches into the veneer must be filled and disguised rather than sanded out.
But you can disguise the sand through. Just think of the process as painting on a faux finish, including color, figure and grain lines. The link Rob supplied gives a very good description of how this is done.
Edited 11/7/2007 7:09 pm ET by SteveSchoene
Did your friend think he owned a solid Cherry table? Just curious.
I dont think they thought about it. I knew it was veneer, and i knew about the problem of sanding through veneer, but did it anyway!!! I thought i was being careful, but obviously, not enough. marc
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
How about some inlay.. As in flower pedals or something the 'owner' would like.. May give it some 'class'.. Worth asking?
Edited 11/8/2007 6:55 pm by WillGeorge
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