How to repair the scratch in our polished timber floor?

[shanmurton3]

  

I was moving our tallboy and in the process scratched the timber flooring. Can anyone please suggest the best way to Minimise or get rid of?

[MitchellMc]

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @shanmurton3. It's wonderful to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about disguising a scratch on timber floors.

That's undoubtedly a decent scratch with quite some depth to it and resembles a more severe gouge. Were you attempting to swell the grain back up with water and an iron?

If you can't get the area to rise with heat and water, your only real option is to fill the area. Unfortunately, since the gouge is perpendicular to the boards and timber grain, the repair is all the more difficult. Scratches and gouges that run parallel to the board and grain can be reasonably easy to bend in, but the damage is noticeable in your case. I'd question whether any repair will be less noticeable than the damage at the moment. The damaged area looks particularly bad at the moment since it's wet. Once it's dry, it will at least have the same colouring as the surrounding timber. 

The issue with using wood filler or wax stixs is that although they are great at filling the depth, you'll need to use multiple colours and blend them to try and produce the same colour as the timber. With some patience, you'll likely be able to get the colour right, but replicating the timber grain can be pretty tricky. You want to try and avoid applying solid lines of coloured filler. As mentioned, this could look worse than the current damage.

Let me mention a few of our knowledgeable woodworking members, @TedBear, @r23on and @Brad, to see if they have any thoughts.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mitchell
 

[r23on]

There is a method to reduce the depth of the scratch but it will take some time in doing so. if you can get a hold of a hand held small steam cleaning unit lay towel over the scratch allow the steam to penetrate the towel. The heat of the steam and moisture will cause the timber to swell and may allow you to sand most of the scratch out. however the sanding will need to be blended across each board so as not to have a dip in each board. I have used this method on hammer marks dints etc. However the depth of marks will dictate the success rate. If you were using an iron as suggested my Mitchell the iron is more localised heat causing burning.

[Noyade]

Hi Shan.

I'm old.

Things that used to annoy me in the past no longer do.

But if that was my floor - today - I'd be attempting to sand it out.

As Mitchell said above it looks more like a deep gouge than a scratch.

I would use a disc sander which must have a variable speed control. Fine grade sanding discs and low speed.

Sanding along the 'scratch' using just the outer edge of the sander will produce a mild concave in the boards, but eventually the scratch will disappear.

It has too.

Re-varnish.

You'll notice it - but will it be less noticeable than the gouge?