My seven minute Watco repair

This is why I love using Watco Danish Oil.

Last week, I stupidly left a water bottle on the coffee table, and the condensation that formed on it left a water ring on the table. What's even funnier - I had a friend over and she thought she'd left it there, so she felt terrible. But nope - it was my fault, and it left a terrible black ring on the wood.

Seriously, it took seven minutes to fix it - I timed it. And - I did the repair with just a minimal amount of tools - a rather dull chisel and a piece of 220 sandpaper.

A few years ago, my buddy Dan said I would eventually get to the point where I would hate having two woodshops. When you're at one, the tool you need is ofetn at the other shop. That happened today, because I needed a cabinet scraper - and yes, they were all at the other shop.

Hence - the dull chisel. But, you gotta work with what you have, right?

A little light scraping removed most of the ring. You have to do this carefully - you don't want to leave ridges.

At this point, almost all of the damaged area is gone. The black stain comes from moisture reacting to the tannins in the oak. Black stains on oak are one of the most common repairs out there, and some people use wood bleach to get rid of them, if the damage is really bad. But I've always found that scraping and anding works well enough.

Once the major stain is gone, a little light sanding is necessary.

And then apply some oil, wet sanding it into the wood. In this case, this table top needed a little TLC, so I oiled the entire top. It absorbed the oil immediately. Like a sponge.

Can you even tell where the damage was?

If this table top had varnish on it, it wouldn't have been nearly as simple to repair - which is why I've been using Watco since 1978.

I guess that kind of dates me, doesn't it?