[frankmcvey]

There are probably no more contributors, Greg, since John pretty much nailed it. It will certainly be a veneered surface (solid teak is VERY expensive) and it will be perhaps as little as 1/64" thick.

John's suggestion of a damp cloth and iron will mitigate dents to a degree, but less so on veneered chipboard/plywood than on solid wood. If your scratches are in fact linear indentations, it may help. However, if they are true scratches in that the fibres of the veneer have been cut, then you're pretty limited.

Trying to stain them to match the rest won't work, since the stain pigments will accumulate in the scratches and make them stick out as dark lines even worse. Using a darker coloured-varnish all over the piece will, of course, hide them to a great extent, but at the cost of having a much darker piece, with much of the wood grain obscured.

If the scratches aren't very deep, then very light hand sanding with very fine sandpaper (180 grit or even less), working with the grain of the veneer, might help. Power tools and coarse paper are out, here - you'll go through the veneer in seconds. Don't use a sander block here either, just your fingertips and patience. Wetting the paper sometimes helps it from clagging up.

If the scratches are too deep for this, then you'll either have to live with it, or re-veneer the surface (not actually so hard with modern paper-backed ready-glued iron-on veneer, and if the surface is completely flat). You'll then be faced with having to finish the new veneer to match the colour and texture of the rest of the piece. Again, this isn't so hard if you have a library of stains and finishes to hand to experiment on scraps of veneer with, but it could become expensive buying different tins of stain etc to find that elusive match.

You could, of course, take it along to a furniture restorer who will have all that stuff, and the experience to use it.

Good luck with it!

Cheers,

Frank