Patching wooden floors damaged with nail holes, gouges or narrow pieces of missing wood remains a nice option over replacing floorboards. Stores carrying paint also have fillers matching natural wood colours making the product freely available and simple to use.
Step One- Find a source of hardwood flooring to replace the damage before starting removing the old flooring.
Step Two- Figure the number and length of strips to be replaced.
Step Three- take away the first strip using the following methods. Take pains not to hurt the neighboring areas, or you will finish up with more repairs.
Step Four- employ a circular saw set at the right depth (most floors are 3 to 4 inch thick) to make 2 passes roughly 0.5 inch from every side of the board (not cutting past the end joints).
Step Five- Make a third cut at an angle between the first two cuts, again not cutting through the side match - the third cut will connect the first two. This gives you 2 triangle-shaped pieces - you do not need cuts on the long sides of the floor strips because it's tongue-and-groove.
Step Six- employ a sharpened chisel to get rid of the cut pieces.
Step Seven- Clean the groove and area round the repair.
Step Eight- Take a bit of the damaged flooring with you to the dealer and purchase enough material of similar color and grain pattern to finish repairs. The dealer should also carry two-part epoxy or a fast-drying glue for sticking the mend pieces.
Step Nine- Cut the piece of flooring to the precise length to guarantee a tight fit. You do not want any openings.
Step Ten- Remove the bottom bump on the grooved edge. This is often done with a saw or by scribing the back of the board with a razor knife, then drumming the piece off with a hammer.