Thread: Visible wood Filler marks under stain. How to remove & what to do?

If you can add some Pics it would help,cheers
Sorry you have,I will blame daylight saving and being up early.
I think you need to sand but not too much as you say you don't want to get into the veener too much.

This is driving using the rear-vision mirror but fillers are a can of worms. You never know how they will blend in until you try, which is why it's always best to use a piece of scrap first. Even neutral shades can take up stain more are less than the wood and the wood described on the can doesn't mean it is the same as the wood of the same name (if that makes sense).
Sanding is probably necessary but, as you said, veneer brings its own problems. I don't suppose you could use the other side instead. I suspect you may have to have a deeper stain than you want.
Best of luck.

I doubt that you can sand back enough (on veneer) to get past the soaked in solvent used in the filler.

My suggestion would be to find out what the solvent is, thin some of the filler with it and cover the whole board with a very thin coat (as with a grain filler) then cut back and sand. At least the whole surface would then be the same.

Unfortunately I have learned of this problem a long time ago.

My experience is only with solid timber and not veneer so it may not work for you depending on how thick your veneer is and how it is attached to the base wood.

I filled all the imperfections in a table with a common water based filler, sanded, dusted off and it looked perfect .......... until the first coat of stain - the result - the same as your pix.

After much head scratching [for this read blue language] my only way was to fully sand off until, basically all of the stain was removed, wash off with water [it appeared to lift what was left of the smears], allow to dry, sand any raised "fur" from the water wash.

The main problem was the smears rather than the smallish imperfections I was trying to fix. After much thought, lots of questions, this led me to give the timber a single, very slightly thinned coat of clear finish first, like a sanding sealer, let it dry completely. This allowed me to finish any blemishes and wipe off any excess around the blemish before it soaked in and caused what you have. When all blemishes were done a lightish sanding with fine paper - then the staining and finishing. It fixed my problem on that table and it is the method I have used on others and it works fine for me.

As I said, how you will go with veneer, I can't really help, but to provide you with a method for solid timber, give the above a go and you will eliminate those smears.

Regards,
Bob