Uh Oh! Can I fix it?

[Roger Warford]

Yikes - a chair scratched our hardwood floor. The scraches are up to about an 1/8" wide and have gone all the way through the finish. Can I fix this short of having the entire floor redone? I know if there is an answer, someone in the Creek will know it!

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[Steve Schoene]

What kind of finish is on the floor?

[Roger Warford]

I'm embarrassed to say I don't know. How can I tell? I'll look through our paper work this afternoon and see if we have something that specifies the type of finish.

[Roger Warford]

The paperwork I have from when the house was built only says "golden oak satin hardwood finish". Anybody have any ideas?

[John Mihich]

You can "hide" it. Since "most" non-factory finishes are some sort of poly here's what I would do.

Find a stain that's close - apply the stain and wipe it off. It won't stick to the poly.

Use a small artist paint brush - apply poly in the scratches - you may have to apply several coats but you can build it up to the surface - You may not even want to do that after you see that the first few coats the scratches have almost disapeared. Not perfect, but it's way better then redoing the whole floor.

I have patched scratches using shellaq to build it up then poly on the last couple of coats - just speeds up the process. If you want you can build up above the flloor level and then sand with very high grit - I have some paper that goes to 12000 so I can actually make a scratch disapear.

[Roger Warford]

Thanks John! Sounds like it's worth a try. I can hardly make it any worse! I'll give it a try and report back - though it may be this weekend before I can get to it.

[Jerry Olexa]

John is giving you good advice...No need to strip/redo whole floor. Be patient. It'll work.