Spent $40 on a heat gun to stain edges and melted a dent into my coffee table

I thought I'd be fancy and try staining the page edges of an old copy of Moby Dick my buddy gave me. Grabbed a cheap heat gun from Harbor Freight for $40 to speed up the drying between coats. Thing got way too hot way too fast and I set it down on my table for two seconds. Now there's a perfect gun-shaped burn mark in the wood and the book edges look like a muddy mess. Anyone else ruin furniture trying to DIY a book project?

2 comments

2 Comments

harper_owens9d ago

Well that's a tough break. I gotta ask though - did you test the heat gun on a scrap piece of wood first before you put it on your table? Because that's the kind of mistake that's easy to avoid with a little patience. I've had my share of DIY disasters over the years and I've learned that rushing almost always backfires. The heat gun getting too hot is one thing, but setting it face down on a finished surface is a rough lesson. What are you thinking about doing to fix the table? Sanding and refinishing might save it if the burn isn't too deep but that's a whole new project on its own.

wade4389d ago

Pulled a rookie move and skipped the test run... figured I'd just wing it like I do with everything else, lol. The burn's not too deep, maybe an eighth of an inch or so, but it's right in the middle of the table where you can't miss it. I'm leaning toward sanding it down and hitting it with some polyurethane, but honestly I'm half tempted to just call it "character" and leave it as a reminder to slow down.