What do you guys recommend for a nail hole putty for pre-finished BC? There is so much color variation in my floor that I'm having a hard time finding a product that blends in well. I bought a range of the Minwax furniture touch up pencils but none of the colors really fit.

Of course, like a dummy, I managed to pick planks bearing every color in the rainforest for some of my face-nailed rows, so I almost think I need a kit where I can mix-n-match colors. Does it exist? I have hand-mixed colors in wood putty for wood trim nail holes, but that's the non-hardening stuff and I don't think it would hold up on the floor. I was assuming that I need some kind of wax product for the floor hole fills, right?

Your product advice is appreciated!

By the way, I have about 100 sqft of my nail-down installation done and hope to get to the rest this weekend, so far it's looking great! Thanks to all that have helped me with layout and other technical questions on this forum. I'll post pictures when it's done.

Also, I'll have a barely used MIIIFS for sale in a few weeks, if anyone needs one for their fleet you can contact me privately.

- Garrett in San Diego

Some of the darker floors are hard to match with universal colored fillers.

I see Elmers has a colored filler out now.


Get a large piece of cardboard... well not too large. and mix 2 or 3 colors.

a squirt here and a squirt there. don't mix well and it gives it a grain effect.

Being that this is your house, you might wait a bit before you fill. BC darkens up, and the filler that matches spot on today, will stick out like a sore thumb in a month or so, dependent on your exposure. I've learned my lessons......Patience, or go darker. Try this.... cut a left over board in half, put one piece in a nice dark closet, the other out in the light for a couple of weeks. compare. I was stunned. Even after a week, you'll see the difference.

SK,

You bring up a very good point. I know my floor will darken but I hadn't thought of waiting to match the final color instead of the initial one. I'll give it some time.

Has anyone used the Woodwise pre-finish filler products? Can they be blended to make custom colors? I was thinking of picking up a few shades of that stuff, would like to hear if anyone can recommend it for what I've got.

Thanks,
Garrett

garrett,

The guy who did my stairs brought along a bag of bubinga sawdust to mix with epoxy to fill the nail holes on a piece of custom trim. Very clever.

So why dont you collect some of your sawdust and do the same?

It's a prefinished floor. Don't think the epoxy and sawdust method will clean up too well from the surface. I always used Color Putty. It is soft at first but gets harder as time goes by. If you're good, you can make those holes disappear.

My trims were also pre-finished; it is a two part epoxy so it takes a while to harden. Yeah, maybe a little messy but it is not superglue.