Front door refinishing questions

[abisel]

What about soda blasting the old finish from the door? Get it down to bare wood and go from there.

[sammyg2]

Here;s some pics:
the outside of the door, nice from 20 feet. It's 42" wide, don't know why it looks so narrow in the pic.







Lower-left section, this is the worst of the damage. You can see how thick the varnish is.








Lower right area, in this pic you can see a little of the white discoloration. Before I hit it with the old english scratch cover, about 1/4 of the lower section had that white stuff on it. Don't know if it's discolored varnish or just hard water deposits?
it takes a few months to reappear.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by abisel

What about soda blasting the old finish from the door? Get it down to bare wood and go from there.

At 1:50 you can see the damage she did to the wood. Unless Sam is going for the 'rustic' look, that's a terrible idea. Might as well use a 4000 psi pressure washer.

[sammyg2]

That kinda reminds me of wood shop in 9th grade.
If we didn't want to hassle with getting the sanding and finishing just right we'd hit the wood with a propane torch to char the surface, then go over it with a wire brush to remove most of the char, and then finish. Easy peazy, if you're looking for something to go with your lava lamp.

Not as popular now as it was then ....

But if the idea was to just get the finish off and THEN sand it back down to smooth that soda blast would work, but I'm not sure how sanding it would save.

[javadog]

It's hard to tell from the photo but do you have some veneer on the bottom left side of the door (bottom of the left style) that's damaged?

[RWebb]

sammy, the trick is gonna be to not damage the inset glass

I got the same problem..

[sammyg2]

I'm thinking this is going to be a project that can only be solved with lots and lots of time and lots of elbow grease, and time.
And some learning thrown in.
No quick fix, no finish it in a day stuff.
Gotta get psyched up for it.

On the plus side, it's an excuse to buy more tools.

[john70t]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

On the plus side, it's an excuse to buy more tools.

Why pay some monkey to screw up the job, when you can do it yourself for free?

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by john70t

Why pay some monkey to screw up the job, when you can do it yourself for free?

If I had someone that I trusted to do it right I'd have the checkbook out already.
Plan B is to screw it up myself. What's the worst that could happen? don't answer that

[RWebb]

you can hire a good painter here for $99/hr


!!

[sammyg2]

lime green maybe ..... the wife would kill me.

[john70t]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

^The major mistake there is bending-over and working on the floor...instead of on stands...at belly-button height.

Don't try to blast clean irregular materials.
(unless it's on purpose..)
Trees grow in concentric rings. Cambrium and something else I ferget. Some material hard. Some soft.
Doing this almost guarantees sanding down another 1/4" of door on both sides.

[Zeke]

Whatever you do it won't be perfect but it will look wonderful at 10 feet. What else could you ask for?

That door is in great shape compared to most I tackled. When we were in the 90's recession I did a lot of this type of work because it was there. It wasn't fun but it was a quick $250 for a day's work.

The secret is to get a nice full coat of SMOOTH finish over the whole door so that it reflected some light which some people call a shine. Not a gloss. They don't see beyond that, trust me.

[javadog]

I think I'd take a hard look at painting the door, if the style of the house would work with a painted door. Less repair time and a longer life.

I recently refinished the front door of my old house and that took the best part of a week. Mine was considerably larger but also perfectly flat, so it could be easily sanded mechanically. Along the way I learned that there really aren't any transparent stains that are intended for exterior use. Some solids in the stain are required for it to stand up to the UV.

Stained wood looks good but it's a lousy solution for exterior use in a sunny climate.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by javadog

I think I'd take a hard look at painting the door, if the style of the house would work with a painted door. Less repair time and a longer life.

I recently refinished the front door of my old house and that took the best part of a week. Mine was considerably larger but also perfectly flat, so it could be easily sanded mechanically. Along the way I learned that there really aren't any transparent stains that are intended for exterior use. Some solids in the stain are required for it to stand up to the UV.

Stained wood looks good but it's a lousy solution for exterior use in a sunny climate.

This is actually very true. The predominate theme for natural wood doors and windows is to have the exterior painted with the interior stained and finished with clear. I live in a 90 YO home with some of the original windows in the front living and dining rooms and this is how they were done in 1930.

I have a mahogany screen door at the front entry and it lasts 2 years at best before needing stripping and finishing. It does face the morning sun.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by Zeke

Whatever you do it won't be perfect but it will look wonderful at 10 feet. What else could you ask for?

That door is in great shape compared to most I tackled. When we were in the 90's recession I did a lot of this type of work because it was there. It wasn't fun but it was a quick $250 for a day's work.

The secret is to get a nice full coat of SMOOTH finish over the whole door so that it reflected some light which some people call a shine. Not a gloss. They don't see beyond that, trust me.

OK assuming I'm dumb enough to pull this off, would you recommend satin or semi-gloss spar urethane?

[Scott Douglas]

I've got my dad's old belt sander with a bunch of new, 80 grit belts that would take that present finish off in no time flat.

I'd go with semi-gloss.

[RWebb]

Is urethane better (longer lasting) than something like Cetol?

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by Scott Douglas

I've got my dad's old belt sander with a bunch of new, 80 grit belts that would take that present finish off in no time flat.

I'd go with semi-gloss.

I've got a belt sander and orbital sanders (air and electric) but that won't help much getting into the nooks/crannies.
Gonna need more power

Maybe one of them funny little sanders with the triangle thing.

[Scott Douglas]

Yeah, I know about nooks and crannies.