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Recently completed an oak mantle around my fireplace.....
On the top, there is a seam between the 1x10 solid oak board (laying flat) and a square cutout from oak plywood. The seam is joined with biscuits. When trying to sand the seam smooth, I have sanded down past the veneer layer on the edge of plywood (along the seam), exposing the off-white layer beneath. How do I deal with this problem as I approach the staining and varnishing part of the project? Thanks in advance....
Maestro
You cannot repair the veneer problem with the varnish or other finishing materials
But you can paint it to cover up your veneer problem.
Thanks
Thats a very hard repair to do. I've tried all sorts of solutions for staining or painting the the substrate to make it look like the veneer, but I've never found it satisfactory. It still ends up looking obvious. Even when I get the colour matching the lack of grain gives it away. I've had some very mediocre success with tiny brushes and watercolours paints.
One solution is to cut out the damaged veneer and replace it. I believe you can buy tools especially made for this job called veneer punches - they work like cookie cutters.
When doing this type of repair, I usually try to make it look deliberate. for example I might cut a strip the full length of the damaged piece, even though I only damaged a small bit - that way it looks like a 2 pieces of timber laminated together. Just my preference.
On other occasions I've simply veneered another sheet over the whole thing - using contact glue if need be. Its more expensive but a good result.
Arron
I agree with Aaron, the most successful way to resolve the problem would be to veneer over the whole thing. Any other repair will look exactly what it is, a patched up job. I am never happy with patching up something like this even if it looks good, I can always pick it and not completely satisfied with the results.