How do I repair a wooden window frame chewed by a rabbit???

[neobo]

Hello everyone

My bunny likes to chew. Most annoyingly, he has chewed the window frame in several places. The wood is stained dark brown, so it is particularly obvious where he has chewed it because there are light patches. I live in rented accommodation so I'm particularly fearful of not getting my £600 deposit back when I move out on Wednesday.

Has anyone got any ideas how to fix this? Is there some kind of filler I can use to get back the edges and corners that he has gnawed at? I guess the biggest problem is going to be staining it - I have no idea how to find exactly the same colour!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Bosswhite]

could try something like this, and paint over with wood stain !!
Worth a try, to save £600 !!

 

[neobo]

could try something like this, and paint over with wood stain !!
Worth a try, to save £600 !!

Absoluely - I'm willing to try anything to save the money!

The only thing I'm worried about with the filler is, can you paint over it? And will the colour not be different on filler to how it is on wood?

 

[Pigeon85]

Could you post a pic up?

 

[Bosswhite]

could try something like this, and paint over with wood stain !!
Worth a try, to save £600 !!

Absoluely - I'm willing to try anything to save the money!

The only thing I'm worried about with the filler is, can you paint over it? And will the colour not be different on filler to how it is on wood?

It is Dark Brown wood filler designed for filling on hardwoods, depends on how bad the damage is as to how much it will show.

 

[emilybronte]

Your landlord will not be allowed to charge you £600 (or anything like it) for a chewed window frame or two.. The most he can claim is the cost of having the affected sections replaced and re-stained by a joiner. (£100 tops?).

The wood filler stuff mentioned above is worth a try, but if I were your LL, I'd want a near-invisible professional repair, which you are unlikely to get with any kind of filler, really. What sort of volume of wood has been destroyed in each frame - are we talking deep chunks, or shallow nibbles along a stretch of wood? I had to decorate a kitchen once where their puppies had chewed the skirting boards and in the end I had to advise them to get new boards - it wasn't possible to restore the old ones to anything like acceptable.

Is your deposit protected in a scheme and have you been given the Prescribed Information relating to it?

In future, don't allow your rabbit to chew window frames.

 

[big-all]

ok my thoughts putting to one side your apparent lack off respect for others property
why have you left it so late
you cant really get it sorted in such a short time
in my humble opinion if you have a free running rabbit there will be much more damage to so much else you will be lucky if you are not charged with further bills for damage way and abouve your deposit

 

[sparkwright]

I would use a two part wood filler to repair the damage. It sets fairly quickly, and sets very hard too - yet easy to sand. Get one that is coloured the same or lighter than the existing wood.

What kind of wood stain is it? If it's something fairly glossy like Sadolin, you may find when you stain over the filler it looks very yellow, and nothing like the colour you want.

In that case, wipe the new stain off, and find a more matt stain a similar colour and put that on. Then, when dry, put the correct stain over.

Pictures would be helpful to assess the scale of the damage.