I have a veneered wood table. It met an unfortunately leaky bottle of DOT5.1 and is now marked (actually more like bleached). What are my repair options?

help here

lightly coat the rest of the table in dot 5.1 to even it out?

if you want it to look proper I'd get a professional in. I'd probably use felt tip and hope the wife didn't spot it.

If it were real wood I'd probably manage it myself, but veneer looks a lot more tricky, its like a plasticy surface that now has no colour and I can't find a way of re-colouring with a wood grain. I considered the complete bleach trick but I'm not sure I could pull it off, and I'd have to do 4 chairs too! 🙁 It's the landlord I'm more worried about, not the wife!

Yellow Pages – French Polisher

😉

coffeeking, is it a real wood veneer or a fake wood veneer i.e. a veneer with a printed picture of a wood grain, if you know what I mean…?

Maybe something like this, although to be honest… just regular coloured pencils can be pretty good.

I THINK its a fake wood veneer – it looks like a cheapy table and the veneer looks to be incredibly thin, though the veneer matches the ply seats which appear to be "real ply" lol. The surface has bleached white and gone a bit soft (at least it was this morning when I first cleaned it) but some grain can still be seen, just. More detail might be notable when I'm not half asleep in the morning, panicking about it and struggling to breathe through a cold and sore throat, I'll update as I find more info! Keep the recommendations coming, I'll try any!

thanks to all for the french polishers 😀 If I could find one locally I might be tempted to call them (they're likely to have an answer!)

If it's fake wood veneer, there's not a great deal you can do I'm afraid…other than try and source some veneer and re-cover the table with that. Nice real wood veneer from people like here (iron on)

If it's real wood (you should be able to tell), it would have to be sanded back with an orbital, but only as long as the sanding wouldn't actually go through the veneer anyway. I reckon the iron-on option might be the best – and make sure you have a nice sharp craft knife to trim the edges, or a specific veneer trimmer – which as far as I know, aren't really that expensive. Then, apply a few coats of varnish and hey-presto, a nice new table.

Hmm it looks like the Ash veneer from the link (thanks DD) – I'll dig deeper (hopefully not literatlly) this evening and see what I can manage. I managed to "repair" it last time I marked it (just bloody rubber feet somehow darkened the surface?!) by lightly buffing it back but I think this is beyond repair. I might have to start looking for a replacement in case I can't cleanly re-veneer it.

It's probably a cheap table. Tell your landlord. She'll claim on her insurance and take the excess from your deposit when you leave.

I reckon (best guess) if the seats are ply with the top layer lacquered/varnished, it's most likely they are Birch ply (what most plywood is anyway).