Howard Products Store Howard-RF7016

Love this product! So much easier than refinishing! Just follow directions & use really fine steel wool, & a light touch! You'll be amazed at how good your piece looks when you're done! Definitely, get the wax & feed stuff they recommend too, use that to protect your wood after you're done. Definitely a 5 star product in my book!

This is a very good product that performs as promised to restore and clean many wood finishes. Restoration is not the same as refinishing. On some types of wood furnishings and finishes, it will improve the appearance dramatically, remove blemishes and clean the wood. It works best on: -Furniture that is scratched with a dull stained finish -Fine furniture with a shiny lacquer finish It will improve the appearance of badly scratched furniture with the above types of finishes. It does not work well on sealed finishes (polyurethane). I have used this product in all of the above situations. Following are some of the results achieved. First, a small pine table with a dull finish appeared shabby and needed improvement. The surface was severely scratched, with mostly surface level damage. After a five minute simple wipe-on application of the product using a rag, the results were dramatic. If I wanted to fuss over this piece, I would reapply using fine steel wool and touch up some of the gouges with a stain pen. Six months later, the table looks almost as it did prior to using the product, and it needs to be reapplied. Howard's Restor-A-Finish proved it's worth during my second project, the restoration of a high quality solid wood table top with a glossy, lacquered finish. The table had white heat marks the size of a salad plate that would not disappear with any previous methods attempted. Prior to using this product, I attempted to remove the white marks by researching solutions in Google. "Removing white heat marks from wood" yielded several cautious attempts from "applying steam again" to using toothpaste, mayonnaise and other so-called "remedies". The white marks remained in the finish. When I found out about the Howard's product here on Amazon, I read some of the reviews where reviewers claimed they were able to remove white rings by simply wiping the product on with a rag. I tried this and it did not work. I was afraid my money went down the tubes, but decided to try using steel wool. 0000 Steel Wool was too soft and ineffective. With 000 grade, it took some patient effort, but less than ten minutes later the white marks were gone. Replenishing the piece of steel wool regularly increased the effectiveness of the process. Work with the grain, use light pressure and keep checking your results to be sure you don't damage the finish. (See before and after photos.) Howard's is also an excellent product to polish and detail wood furniture that is already in good shape, reviving it a bit and making it look exceptionally clean and shiny. For best results with wood finishes that need cleaning, use steel wool. As mentioned earlier, the product will improve the appearance of some finishes, but does not do anything that I would consider restorative on certain finishes. For example, I wiped it on a small table that appears to have had a polyurethane finish that was in poor condition. It deposited a light stain in the areas that were lighter, but the result wasn't very impressive. The areas where the urethane finish was not damaged was cleaned, but the stain was unable to penetrate the lighter scratches. The only solution for this type of situation is either covering the old finish or removing it. A similar result was obtained on a very old veneer top using steel wool and minimal elbow grease. The result is better than before, but the wood still shows a lot of the underlying damage. Another mediocre result was achieved on a furniture with deep scratches. The product changed the color of the scratches and improved the appearance dramatically. However, the damage was still visible. Better results were achieved by filling the scratches with a wood crayon, and smoothing them out using fine steel wool and a light hand to prevent marring the finish. This is a stop-gap solution for furniture that either should be refinished or painted. All in all, this is an excellent product for cleaning and addressing many wood furniture problems without refinishing.

This was the easiest product to use. There’s no way you could mess it up just rub it on and rub it off. It helps with scratches and restores old cabinets. We had severe water damage on the cabinets and they were restored in a matter of minutes. I’ll buy it and use it again and again I can’t wait to try it on other areas of our home that has wood

This stuff is super easy for even a total beginner. What it's *best* at is helping to lift scuff marks, ie stuff on top of the existing finish that you don't want. It's also good at evening out the finish - kinda like blurring primer for your face? Or top coat on a smudged manicure? Cuz what it seems to do is slightly soften the existing finish, then enhance/ blend it with the tint of whatever color you chose. I used Dark Walnut, and it worked fine on 3 different pieces of furniture that were all different shades of medium-dark brown. What it doesn't work for: • filling in scratches • evening out dents or nicks in the wood itself • covering specks of bare wood Maybe unsurprisingly, I got better results on my higher quality pieces of furniture. On cheap veneer, i was left with kind of a scratched up mess.

This product does a decent job at improving the look of worn wood surfaces without a lot of effort. It helped reduce scratches and brought back some color, especially on darker areas. However, the finish doesn’t last as long as a full refinish, and the smell is quite strong during application. It’s useful for quick touch-ups, but not a permanent solution if the wood is heavily damaged. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Howard "Restore-a-Finish" is a superior product. It works to correct blemishes, remove water rings, cover up scratches, and restore faded spots almost as well as a professional refinishing. Just follow directions. A little goes a long way, so one can will last for years. Just match the wood color/tone, use "0000" steel wool for deep blemishes and water rings as directed, and allow plenty of time for wood stain to set before polishing or waxing (preferably with Howard's perfectly matched "Feed-N-Wax").

Totally overrated. Use two different colors on two different types of furniture and the results was blah. I mean they may have brightened them up a bit, but if you have scratches they don't do squat.

This stuff works great on antique furniture. Stripping and putting a modern finish on atiques takes a lot of time, ruins both the look and value. It does just enough to restore the finish without ruing the patina. It's easy to use even for a novice. I't turned a $10 thrift store find into a $300 resell in just and afternoon. If you're into flipping antiques, this is the way to go.