[rcecale]

Yeah, sure, collectively, this BBS knows more about Porsches than anywhere else in the world (Except for maybe Ferry himself...).

But, how much do "we" know about woodworking?

I know there are at least a few of you guys that either dabble in it as a hobby or maybe even are highly skilled and do it for a living. And of course, there are those who fall somewhere in the middle. I've spent my time around woodshops. Took the classes back in middle and high school, even. But my question for today is simply this...

What is the best way you have discovered/developed/learned to keep your sandpaper from loading up with gunk when you strip finished wood?

Without going into a lot of detail, my wife has talked me into removing all the trim from the doors and windows in our kitchen and breakfast room and refinishing them. Doesn't sound like too much of a task, I know, but geeze, wait till you hear the specifics.

3 wood panel doors - strip and restain one side each.
2 wood panel doors - strip and restain BOTH sides.
trim and casings around all 5 doors, strip and restain
9 windows 6' high x 3' wide, strip and restain all the trim and sills
60' of baseboard (including quarter round)
32' of chair railing.

Scares me just writing it all down!

The trim, chair-rail and baseboards are all easy enough. The trouble I'm having is on the doors. It looks like the PO of the house layered on a bunch of the Minwax Polycrylic stuff which has left drips and stuff all over the doors.

In trying to sand through it, it just seems to clog up my sandpaper. It gets these big clumps of what looks like melted glue in blotches all over it. Once these appear, the paper is pretty much shot.

I tried easing up as much as I could with the pressure I was applying to the sander, but it doesn't help much. I tried switching from my belt sander to my palm sander and that hasn't made any difference either.

I really don't want to go the way of using a stripper because it just seems so messy. sure, the sanding residue gets all over, but a quick pass with the shop-vac and it's all clean again. Nothing to discard but a bag of sawdust. With stripper, there's all that hazardous waste to consider.

So, anyhooo, anyone got any ideas?

Thanks for listening (reading) [/rant]

Randy