Learn how to touch up scratches in your wood furniture using liquid stain and common household supplies and tools. The process is simple, affordable and can be used to touch up scratches in wood cabinets in your kitchen or bathroom too! The process described is evaluated for Eco-friendly considerations all along the way.
A transcript of the video if you’d rather read the information:
Minwax makes great stained products and many of their colors come in these nifty little stain markers they are super convenient but kind of spendy and they don’t tend to last very long. I also don’t like that the packaging is not recyclable. My preference is to use the same stain but in the small 1/2 pint cans. A little stain goes a long way and the product stores really well if you close the cans tightly. I have cans that are up to 30 years old that I’m still able to use.
My favorite use for this Minwax stain is to fix scratches on my furniture. The ebony wood finish is the perfect color to hide scratches on the legs of my couch. Even when you get a new can of oil-based stain, the pigment tends to settle out a little bit. These little cans are easy to shake but I also like to mix the pigment up from the bottom of the can and to do that I use a bamboo skewer. The skewers do a good job and you can just wipe them off when you’re done or if they’re too grungy you can just toss them and they’re biodegradable.
Before starting be sure to use a drop cloth under your work area! Even stain markers can drip or run sometimes.
To apply the liquid stain to the furniture I like to use a cotton swab. Pick up a little bit of the stain with the swab and dot it on. Let the stain sit for about a minute and then wipe it off with a paper towel.
You can repeat this process on the same scratch a couple of times if the wood isn’t absorbing the stain the way you’d like it to. Be sure to remember to wipe off the excess stain for the best appearance and to avoid rubbing it off. The cotton swabs made with a paper stick can be broken in half to make it easier to use both sides. These swabs are also more biodegradable than the ones with the plastic stick.
This stain comes in a wide range of colors to match your furniture and you can mix the colors if you need to make a really exact match. This technique is also great for kitchen and bath cabinets.
Be sure to tightly close the can when you’re done so that it’ll be in good shape the next time you want to use it!
Minwax Stain is available in dozens of colors. This link directs you to the 1/2 pint cans that are described in the article above.
After reading the article above, if you'd still rather have the convenience of using a Stain Marker to touch up your furniture or cabinets, this will take you to the Ebony version.
These Cotton Swabs are the kind with the paper sticks - the type that was used in the article above.
Also mentioned in the article above, here are the paper towels.
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If you have gouges or holes that need to be filled in your furniture, or places that need to be re-glued, check out this article: Gap Filling Wood Glue – JB Weld KwikWood
