I’m pretty sure I can handle the stain/sealing part. My concern is stripping off the old finish.
It’s our front door, so it is outside. But it inside an enclosed porch, so it never gets wet or direct sun. Just hot in the summer. It’s getting a bit dull, and the texture is rough. The inside of the same door is still smooth and moderately shiny.
It’s not just a flat door. It has recessed panels. The trick -I think- is going to be to sand off the old finish without rounding all those sharp edges where the panels recess. Any suggestions about how not to do that? The flat areas will be a breeze (orbital sander). But maintaining sharp edges will be tricky. I think it will be unattractive if I round all those edges.
I agree with this. This is what I did to a similar door years ago. I needed to remove the door and put it on a couple of saw horses and apply the remover, let it sit then scrape. Put the door back on at night and do sanding and staining the next day.
If it is painted try a blow torch or propane torch first. Much can be scraped off with a putty knife once softened by heat. Can also use electric heat gun.
Most chemical strippers are toxic and ingredients are being banned. Minimize their use if you can. And be sure you have good ventilation.
It’s not painted. It’s stained, and probably has poly (or some other) sealant. It is a bit rough to the touch, so it’s probably not sealed very well anymore.
I don’t see that using a chemical buys me anything if I have to sand it anyway. Then just go straight to the sanding. If it were painted, that would be thicker, and I could see that. But natural wood, I think I should go to sanding. The stain would have penetrated a bit, while paint really doesn’t much.
My only thought is to get something unyielding to use as a sanding block. Most blocks have a rubber surface, and will soften all the edges. If I use a wood block as the sanding block, that might preserve the edges? Though the recessed panels will still have to be done by hand, and my fingers are going to be more like the rubber block than the wooden block, so a good chance to round the edges.
That does look like a cool tool. I’m wondering if it can remove a finish without taking too much of the wood with it. If so, that would be an awesome tool.
The chemicals allow you to gently scape and wipe away lots of the stain, eliminating 90% of the sanding needed.
I only used these once about 15 or 18 years ago when I refinish an antique-ish desk. It goes on as a gel, you let it sit for a while, it loosens stuff, you wipe or scape it away. Very good for the edges and corners. So I’d give it a try.
I don’t know about any modern formulations
And a high grit paper is used to lightly sand the wood just to knock down the raised portions of wood (when using the gel it will raise some of the grain slightly.) If you plan on sanding it down than realize that you will not be able to keep the high profile edges. It is really hard to get stain off by just sanding a door that has profiles in it. Good luck!!!
The rubber sanding blocks I’ve seen are made of pretty hard rubber. I would expect hood-and-loop sandpaper to have give, making the old fashioned kind preferable to any of those.
Depending n the amount of poly you could be in for a crap-ton of sanding. You will gum up endless sheets, and worse, you will get so frustrated that you will resort to ever coarser grit, which could damage the door unevenly.
To remove the coating, whether it’s lacquer, poly, or whatever I’d go with a stripper, clean as best as possible, then use a medium and then a fine grit sandpaper to get back to the unstained wood.
Now you have a virgin door. Start from scratch, it’ll look great.
I may have the same issue with the recessed panels in that scaping them after application of the stripper could be tricky. There are sharp edges that lead to some router-ed rounded edges. The router-ed bits would be tricky to scrape, I would think.