How do you hide your mistakes?

[Dukester]

Rounding over the edges of some raised panel doors, I must have not had the bearing of the router bit all the way down or something and made a serious gouge on the side of the door. Anyway, the gouge is about 1/2" wide x 1" long (damn router!). It is very visible and would be too much of a hassle to recreate this one door from scratch without a lot more work. And I doubt I can break the M&T joints of the door to replace the one stile I gouged without destroying the door or making it look even worse than it does now.

Anyway I was thinking a wood putty with a plane shaving of the same material glued over the top would at least give the gouge the same finish characteristics (color etc.) than plain old putty. Then it occurred to me that a sliver of veneer would be even better. But I don't have any and am too cheap to buy $20 of veneer for a 1/2" screw-up.

How do you fix boo-boos' like this? Surely I'm not the first. Well, someone has to be!

[TWS]

Since you are talking about using putty does this mean that you're painting the door rather than staining or finishing so the grain shows?

If this is the case simply rip off the outside edge below the depth of the gouge, edge glue a replacement piece on and trim to size and route (this time watching the depth of the bit ;-)

If you are staining to show grain this technique still may work if you can get something to closely match the grain or your panels are narrow boards that are glued up so the glued up boards on the stile won't look too weird...

TWS

[toller]

Putty will look like crap. With a little patience, you can cut a piece of "veneer" with your table saw. I have done this a couple times. The match never works out as well as I had hoped, but it is sure better than any putty.

[Matthias Mühe]

Can you cut all the profiles deeper so the boo-boo is cut-off compeltely?

Regards Matthias

[Brian in Hampton]

What mistakes??? We dont make them......They are just design elements.........Brian

[Upscale]

You've got two ways to go. One is to insert some type of ornamental element to the door which states that it was done on purpose and the second way is to try and cover it up. If you're going to try and cover it, you might consider filling the gouge with some type of wood filler and then running a veneer strip along the whole length of the damaged section. Glue on or iron on veneer strips for edging are relatively cheap.

[Dukester]

Thanks for all the replies. This is pretty much what I had in mind, but I'll probably just try using a plane shaving instead of a veneer strip. It will be thicker, but I can knock it down with a sander pretty quick.

[GG]

Any of the offered solutions will work it the door is to be painted, if that is the case the easiest one for me would be , believe it or not, is joint compound. It will adhere to the wood and after it drys it can be tooled/sanded to the desired shape. I learned this when a new puppy decided a drawer on a built in vanity in the bathroom tasted good and he chew up a corner (read he made it go away). That was 10 years ago and the repair is still undetectable. HTH - George

[jev]

Actually, for repairs where it is to be painted i've used Bondo used in auto body repair.

[Mike Marlow]

Outside edge? Rip off the edge and glue on a new edge. Route to shape. Finish it and salute it from across the room.