Repairing and Filling Wood Gouges and Dents
How Depressions, Gashes, Gaps & Holes in Furniture & Wood Are Fixed
Nov 15, 2007
Furniture repair and restoration professionals can mend compression dents by raising them with moisture or steam. Fractures—gouges, gashes, burns and similar deep wounds—are repaired by filling them with hard waxes, epoxy fillers or wood inlays.
Raising Compression Dents in Wood and Furniture
A depression in a wood surface is either a compression dent or a fracture. The former occurs when, for example, a blunt object like a hard ball hits a tabletop and crushes or compresses the matrix of fibers that comprise wood. A fracture is entirely different: the fibers are cut or sheared by a heavy sharp object, such as when the edge of a brick strikes and gouges a surface.
Fracture repairs require filling. Compression dents usually can be raised by applying moisture or steam to the wounded area, which swells the wood fibers, enabling them to return to their former plane and shape. The repair is accomplished by laying a damp towel over the dent for hours, or pressing a hot iron to it to generate steam and speed the process. Visual inspection of a dent doesn’t always reveal whether it’s the compression or fracture variety, so the steaming out process is inexact, unpredictable and something of a trial-and-error affair. Once the dent is successfully raised, manual sanding and smoothing are often needed to perfectly level the repaired area and coax it into conforming to its surroundings. Steam inevitably obliterates the furniture finish, and sometimes changes the color as well. Both are touched up and feathered to blend the repaired area with the adjacent surface.
Repairing and Filling Fracture Dents and Gouges
Fracture dents and sundry other gouges, gaps and holes in wood and furniture must be
- Cleaned of any debris or residue, such as splinters, burn marks and ash
- Filled with a durable substance—wax, epoxy, inlay-veneer, lacquer lay-in
- Leveled, sanded, smoothed and contoured
- Match color stained by hand painting, airbrushing and aerosol
- Finished with a sealer of similar sheen
Gouge and Dent Fillers: Wax, Epoxy, Inlay
- Waxes soft and hard are employed to fill small wood cavities. These come in dozens of typical furniture colors: mahogany, beech, maple, rosewood, etc. Soft waxes are rubbed in to fill scratches and nicks. Hard waxes, called melt-in or burn-in sticks, are quite durable and are used for filling deeper voids that have to withstand use and abuse, such as a hole in a hardwood floor. Typically, a hot knife blade is used to melt the wax, which dribbles and runs into the hole and solidifies. Smoothing, followed by match color painting (if needed) and sealer touch-ups, complete the job.
- Epoxy putty, which is a furniture-grade version of Bondo (a popular auto body filler), is an alternative to wax for large gaps, holes, missing parts and wood aspects that must be shaped, sculpted or molded to resemble their original outlines. Widely available in tube-like stick about 1" W x 6" L, epoxy fillers are two-part mixtures that are kneaded to begin a chemical reaction and set up with a wood-like hardness within 15 minutes, enabling almost immediate shaping, smoothing and contouring, followed by hand brush and spray staining, graining and distress mark simulation, and sealing. Depending on the restorer’s art and experience, large wound repairs are considered successful when they are inconspicuous to someone who was unaware of the problem, looking from a distance of four to eight feet.
- Inlays are custom-fit wafers of wood, or veneer, usually the same wood species, color and grain pattern as the area surrounding the wound. Inlays are cut to fit a recess snugly, glued, sanded flush, stained and sealed. A popular decorative tabletop repair inlay is called a Dutchman.
- Lacquer Lay-ins are successive applications of a heavy-body lacquer. Water-white (transparent) lacquer, similar to clear nail polish, is carefully "layed" into the gouge, dent or burn mark, using a pin or small brush, and left to dry and harden. More coats are applied until the cavity is filled to slightly overflowing. A sharp razor blade or scraper is repeatedly drawn across the hard lacquer to shave, smooth and level it. A well-executed lacquer lay-in is often invisible and seamless.
