Oak look-alike repair finishing?

[Marty Gulseth]

Hey folks,

we we recently bought some second hand furniture. Mission-style, looks like white oak with a typical red- brown appearance. The pieces had a few nicks and dings, but I thought that I could deal with those. When we got it home I carefully sanded down a couple of the spots to what looked like bare wood, then applied stain like I have done in the past. Long story slightly shorter - the stain does not seem to penetrate the wood. I know the first I tried was a pigment stain ( "famous" yellow can stuff), but I went and got two different types of dye stains - at least that's what it says on the cans - and got essentially the same results.

The furniture was manufactured in that country across the western ocean, so I'm a little suspicious that they either used some local wood that sort of looks like oak but does not behave the same to stain, or maybe there is something entirely different going on.

Does anyone have thoughts or suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Marty

[Wayne Lomman]

1st rule, when repairing dings and scratches on second hand furniture, don't sand back to bare timber. Just mix up a matching tinted lacquer and dab it on the damage with a fine pencil brush.

That being said, now that you have sanded back, do the same thing with a bigger brush. Make the tinted matching lacquer a bit weaker colour than your final colour so that you can put on more than one coat. Good luck. Cheers