Hi, you guys were so incredibly helpful about my eames armchair question that I realized you might be able to help me with another problem I've been wondering about:
I bought a Nelson slat bench from a previous owner who had bought it about a year ago, used it briefly until his child nicked it in a few places, and then sanded down some nicks to sell it.
I'd like to know if anyone could help me determine how to refinish the wood to match the rest of the original finish. I can see that the finished portions are starting to develop a nice patina, and I'm worried that the unfinished sections will look blotchy if I use to wrong finish or leave them be.
So far, a few helpful people at HM have been able to tell me that the varnish they use is a "20 gloss +/-5 gloss level of finish" and a "Catalyzed pigmented varnish" but these are pretty foreign terms for me.
Can anyone help? Is this the type of thing I'm never going to be able to find at a hardware store? If so, can anyone recommend someone in the NYC area who might be able to do the wood-work?
Thanks so much,
DP 
The bad news:
It's a proprietary sprayed-on finish and neither you nor a professional refinisher will ever reproduce it exactly. And no, you won't find even a similar product in a hardware store. Furniture manufacturers often add pigments to clear finishes to help even out slight variations in color of raw wood. As the wood oxidizes naturally, most species tend to darken and mellow over time, as will maple in this case. Sanding can expose fresh fibers that often look drab and anemic next to nicely aged surfaces.
The good news:
No matter what treatment you choose, the freshly-sanded maple will eventually darken and even out to be hardly noticeable in comparison. A good refinisher can certainly return the bench to near as-new condition, though these pieces are somewhat challenging and labor-intensive because the construction presents so many individual visible surfaces.
Bottom line:
Depending on your intended purpose for the bench, it's ultimate placement in your home, and your tolerance for imperfection, you may not need to do much of anything at all beyond giving the piece a coat or three of good-quality paste wax. In fact, if the bench were mine, that's probably what I would do after lightly sanding the exposed areas to 400 or 600 grit. And if that didn't do the trick, there would be no further harm done and a complete refinish would still be an option.
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