Removing scratches and dents from solid wood furniture

Scratches or dents in your favourite wooden tabletop?

After a few years, your often-used wooden top will certainly have suffered from time to time. But that's not a bad thing and of course it's part of the game. That's why we're giving you some tips and instructions on how you can easily remove dents and scratches from your wooden panel yourself. We hope it helps you.

Remove scratches and stains

No scratches and stains can be sanded away relatively easily with fine sandpaper. You should start very gently and sand along the wood grain (not against it) with careful movements. Do not remove more wood than necessary. When you are satisfied with the result, the sanded area needs to be oiled a little more so that there is a protective layer over the now sensitive area. If you have some furniture oil at home, you can put a fingertip portion of it on a cloth and carefully spread it on the area and polish it after a few minutes.

If the stains still do not disappear, you may have to use a coarser sandpaper and sand more extensively until you like it. Then sand again with the fine sandpaper and oil the area as described.

Iron out deep scratches & dents

For deeper damage such as dents, sandpaper is no longer helpful. For this, you can get water to help you. By treating such areas in the wood with hot water, depressed wood fibres swell and, with luck, the whole dent can be smoothed out again.

To do this, dab a little water on the dent or the depressed scratches, let it soak in a little and then very carefully hold an already heated iron on the spot. This will cause the water to evaporate and the wood to curl upwards again. If this has worked, you can then rework the area with sandpaper and furniture oil.

Heavily used table

If you have developed some large stains and scratches over the years, it is best to sand the entire table. The table will then look like new again. We recommend using a machine (orbital sander or random orbital sander - you can rent them at a DIY store) and sanding the table in different ways (1. coarse 80 grit, 2. medium 120 grit, 3. fine 240 grit). Then re-oil with furniture oil and polish.