Veneer Repair

[Jeff Monson]

Make a "miney card scraper" out of a single edge razor blade.
Try a few passes w/that.

That is a good idea, I use single edge razor blades for removing small amounts of material and glue in tight spots.

[Scott Holmes]

A razon blade is good but a bit fragile; try a boxcutter blade instead. They are stout and just as sharp.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Yep - utility blade'll work just as well. Probably a little easier to put a curl on the edge of one than a razor blade. I have like a thousand or so single edge blades so that's what I grab first.

[Chris Fournier]

That's as good as it gets with that kind of defect! Nice work.

Any suggestion to fill the defect with glue and dust or what have you would emphasis the problem while perhaps leveling it but would be a poor strategy.

[Tom McMahon]

That appears to be modern thin veneer, if it is you will never be able to sand or scrape out the scratch without going through the veneer. You only have 3 choices 1. replace the damaged part of the veneer which may be difficult depending on what you glued it down with. 2. replace the entire panel. 3. fill with shellac sticks and in-paint the repair, if you have not done this type of repair before go to option 1 or 2.

[Harvey Pascoe]

I don't believe there is any way. What you got there is due to a change in the orientation of the fibers which produces a different prismatic effect from the surrounding wood. Think of it like figured wood. The only way to get rid of that is to remove the shifted wood fibers and, of course, you can't do that. I feel for ya, it happens to me too.

[Pat Barry]

If you were planning a very heavy (thick) finish coat you could fill in the depression obviously. If you've tried the water grain raising technique and that's the best it will get then localized sanding is your only hope to help blend the appearance. Again, with a thin veneer you may be out of options. Maybe you could call it a character mark and come up with an interesting story for how it got there. Good luck.