Hi Mark

That's a hard one,,most two part products or putty or filler will not take the stain the same way like the real wood, I would suggest a plug out of the same wood or inlay insert, on the scratches in red oak they do make some good pens that they use to restore Oak furniture..

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I do plan on using a plug of the same wood. I was just looking for something to fill in around the edges. What kind of pens to you mean? I've never heard of filler pens before.
Thanks,
Mark

 

Hi

Stop by any of the big furniture stores and ask to see what they use..they use them all the time. but back away from the wax sticks, stain and wax don't mix..
like the
http://oakstoreaz.com/Index.html
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In a shop I used to work at we used Famowood. It came tinted to specific woods in about a 6-8 oz tub and worked very well as far as colour match. It still looked like a patch until I tried penciling in grain with a .5mm mechanical pencil. After that it could be hard to find the patch at times.

 

I've used Zar water based filler in the past and had very good success with it. It comes out of the container as a near perfect color match, though as Chuck said the graining can be tricky.

 

If worse comes to worse take the sawdust from the wood You are cutting and mix with glue to fill the holes or gouges then sand it down it will take the stain....Not the most scientific aproach but it does work for me at times , although getting the right mix of sawdust and glue is a little tricky... I do most of the time use different putty's found at a wood working outlet in town .... Good Luck

 

Mike,
In a finishes or restoration shop you will find sets of small coloured wax sticks especially made for this purpose, an Oak one will have several sticks of various Oak colours, just rub in and clean up.

 

I am prone to screwing up everything I work on to one extent or the other so I use the glue/sawdust trick that papawd alluded to and if the screw-up is big enough I mix sawdust with natural wood putty. I keep labeled containers of sawdust from each kind of wood I work with just for that reason. I have it down pretty much to a fine science now, but it took a while to get the right mix so it would match when dry. I also found router table shavings work best because they are a little more coarse than saw blade shavings.

 

Ken, Mohawk refinishing products are used by many professionals. Years ago I worked at a waterbed store and made a repair on a deeply gouged triple sized red oak dresser. The owner came looking for the damaged dresser and couldn't find the repair I made on it using Mohawk products.

 

why not use this i have used it and it work's very good. It is timbermate brand .Read about it here is the link timbermate wood filler