I (my wife) drug home this old table, wanted to refinish it. It had 2 coats of old paint, one red, and a green one under that. I spent the day with the **** they call stripper and got it pretty well down to wood. It's solid black walnut, nice.

However, there's a perfectly round dent in the top of it about the size of a large ball peen hammer driven about 1/8" deep, about an inch across. No wood appears missing, just compressed. Any ideas on how I might restore this somehow?

A damp towel and and an old iron might raise it some

That's about what I would suggest, steam it to raise the wood. I did an M1 Garand stock years ago and it does help. Perhaps someone else will come along with even better suggestions.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

Like Arjay said just take it easy with both the heat and the water. moisten the wood and keep the towel in place and place the iron right over the dent . Do a little, look a little, and be patient . The iron needs to be hot enough to make steam, but just barely. The towel is just moist not dripping wet.
If I were you I`de practice on a scrap piece of wood until I got the hang of the technique. Then you`ll be going around the house looking for stuff to fix.

I agree with the rest,a damp towel and a iron will swell the wood and bring the dent to almost original condition.

I just went out and put 2 drops of water in the dent, will let it settle into the wood, then give it a try. Thanks everyone!

Steam is the trick, wet towel and an iron, just like everyone else said.

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LIVE FROM THE DAWGHOUSE

Wet the wood directly to put some moisture into those compressed wood fibers. Let it soak in.

To begin raising the dent, I use a small cloth patch,,a piece of T-shirt material folded over and soaked with water works well.

Instead of an iron,I use an electric soldering gun. The pistol grip w/trigger style. They'll get heat at the tip quickly up to the 400F+ point.
I take the folded wet cloth and place it over the dent and use the soldergun tip placed onto the cloth to build up steam quickly.
I fold the cloth over the tip to concentrate and enhance the steam even more into the wood. Careful you don't burn your fingers handling the cloth,,it'll be hot!

The cloth will dry out in that spot rather fast with this heat so move the cloth around to a wet area again.
Re-wet the cloth as needed and don't skimp on the water.
Continue to drop some water onto the wood itself under the cloth to help generate steam in the wood.

Once the dent is brought up as far as you can with this method,,then I may switch to an iron to further raise the dent.
Here I again drench the wood directly and use the wet cloth over that with the iron on the highest setting to pump steam and moisture into the wood.
It is possible with some patience to get the wood to swell back up to and even past the level it once was.

Dents w/broken wood fibers are a different story and a lesser level of success is generally the end result, though some lessening of the depression will be gained.

I think different than most folks. I would leave the dent, and maybe highlight it, as a testament to a well traveled and used piece of furniture. I appreciate tools, guns, knives, ect that show scars form a life well lived. My warped way of thinking would have me leave the legs with the multiple coats of paint and redo just the top. Wouldn't that be an interesting conversation piece? The dent would be a great way to keep your marbles from rolling off the table. My friends think my marbles done rolled away years ago.

I've taken to using a cloths steamer. Walnut is hard and the dent being compressed for such a long period of time doesn't help either. I would soak that spot for a few days before I tried to raise it. You may get it high enough to sand the rest of it down to the dent itself. It doesn't happen if you don't try.

DW

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"NUTS"

I have this little technique I use on smaller size dents when redoing gunstocks. I use a wash cloth and do the work in the kitchen. I put a large spoon on top of the stove top, set on high. Using a glove to handle the spoon, I can produce several little bursts of steam before the spoon cools to much, moving the wash cloth a little after each "steam hit". I set the spoon back on the stove top and it is hot and ready to go again by the time I get more water back in the wash cloth. If it is only 1/8 inch deep, you should be able to bring her back to normal, I have raised some very deep dings in some American black walnut stocks over the years using this method. Just keep repeating until the depression is raised back to pre damaged condition. Rolling the spoon over the dent appears to provide me with excellent control of putting that little bit of steam exactly where I want to raise the grain.

I've done the dent trick with a wash cloth (old one aka SWIMBO) and her steam iron. In most cases unless the fibers have been sheared with sharp edges this has worked very well. However after raising the dent or dents I wait a few days to see if the dent stays raised or drops down slightly when the water soaked fibers dry out. In cases where the dent is really small on furniture you could sand it out as you will be refinishing it anyway. I used silicon carbide wet or dry paper starting at 220 grit and if needed up to 600 grit. And use a quality varnish to top it off. Frank

You could leave it, take a heavy chain and beat the snot out of it. Give it that "highly desirable" distressed look.

Boy you guys are a wee bit timid when it comes to the steam treatment.

I get a small white terry towel sopping wet. Fold it once or twice. Set the iron on its highest setting.

Place towel on the wood then apply the iron. Repeat as necessary. Walnut is a great wood to steam and raises nicely.

Another trick is to cut fine lines into the center of the dent with the grain.

This helps the center to rise up. Also note all the wood will raise some so stop when you no longer are making progress.

Yes I do wood work and refinishing so this is the way I do this every time.

BLM
Here's some walnut.

Bruce that's a beautiful veneer dresser. 1930's??

Paul

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"NUTS"

It could be from the 1930's but the internal structure is the cheapest grade of fir that I have ever seen.
It was rough cut and splintered and the factory left out a drawer separator because they installed the frame side rail with the groove backwards.

I was really surprised at the walnut sequenced matched veneer on the drawers.I was expecting mahogany. Drawer boxes were built from oak.

The 1920's and 1930's pieces are mostly poplar under the veneer and frame parts.

This piece is large for what I would call a Bachelor's chest. The client was thrilled with the results as they had no idea it was Walnut.

These old pieces are probably the most rewarding items to bring back to their former glory.

BLM

Here is a tip for you refinishers out there:

Don't apply paint and epoxy stripper on an old wooden chair in hot, direct sunlight!

(It just hardens all the gunk up and and you need to start all over. Learned this yesterday. A related tip is to read the instructions carefully, especially the part where it says "For best results, do not apply this stuff in direct sunlight.")

Gonna retry the stripper application this evening. If anyone has any tips on how to make this finish stripping operation any easier, let's have 'em, please! The goofball guy I am using to do this -- that'd be me -- could use the advice.

As you already found out the best time to strip is when the weather is cool and in the shade.

If an item has an old brittle finish I prefer to scrape it off instead of using stripper.

I do not use any scrappers that are sold in the store. They will tear the wood.

I use large old kitchen knives with flat or semi flat edges and pull the blade across the surface. You never want a sharp pointed edge on the ends of a scrapper as they dig in and leave long scratches in the wood.

The steps I use to strip are based on economy. Do buy good gloves for your hands.

Pour stripper into center of the wood top. Take a piece of cardboard and move the stripper to the edges and allow to set a until the finish is soft.

Remove with a putty knife that has the corners rounded to prevent scratching. If you must brush the stripper on use natural bristle.

To finish I put a white terry towel into the center and a piece of #2 steel wool on top of that . Pour Acetone onto the wool and terry towel. Use the steel wool to remove any remaining finish and the terry towel for the final wipe down. The terry towel also helps to keep the Acetone from running off of the work.

I'm sure others have different methods but this process works well for me.

BLM