# Need help with door staining process



## APP_804 (Mar 14, 2017)

Hello everyone,

I went to spec an interior repaint Friday and the customer asked me for a bid to repair and re stain all their interior doors. Not sure what wood they are made of but they were installed 28 years ago and have held up quite well. Just normal wear and tear with dings, gouges, and scratch marks from dogs. I've never stained doors before and am unfamiliar with the process. What am I looking at to sand down, repair, and re stain/clearcoat? Any recomendations on fillers and stains/clearcoats? I have BM and SW products available to me in my area. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Will attach a couple pictures.

Thank you,
Zach


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## finishesbykevyn (Apr 14, 2010)

If they are in good condition, you may suggest just a couple more coats of varnish to spruce them up. To restain them, you will have to completely remove the old finish by way of sanding or chemical stripping. This can be very time consuming for a cheap interior door.


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## APP_804 (Mar 14, 2017)

finishesbykevyn said:


> If they are in good condition, you may suggest just a couple more coats of varnish to spruce them up. To restain them, you will have to completely remove the old finish by way of sanding or chemical stripping. This can be very time consuming for a cheap interior door.


As far as imperfections like gouges and dents, could you apply filler prior to coats of varnish? Or is it not possible to do without re staining?


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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

I'd avoid any filler if at all possible, especially with 'dents'. And if you are gonna do it, it needs to happen before stain. It will look like crap. You can get creative with an artis brush and some thinned stain to help blend certain things in though.

I wouldnt take that job myself, unless we were putting the same color stain on, so I would just sand the flat parts back to bare wood and start over. Redoing a front door is one thing, but a whole house full of them.... Hell no!


If you've never stained a door before heres the process. THose doors look like pine. Its very soft, and will show orbital marks coarser than 150 Move your sander very slow to minimize any marks. The door should be laying down on a sawhorse, with rags or carpet or something on the sawhorse BTW. After its sanded and dusted, you'll want to put a prestain conditioner on both sides or it to prevent blotching. For this, and for the staining itself, its way faster to have a pair of rubber gloves, and dip a wadded up rag or even a sponge in the stain and put on on the whole door as quick as possible, than to use a brush. Use a brush to get it in the corners where the rag wont get it though. Wipe the whole thing off with the grain with one rag, then wipe it again with a cleaner rag. I'll usually stain and wipe the panels one at a time, then do the main frame, whatever its technically called. Dont forget the top and bottom. Carefully flip it without putting any fingerprints on the door. I use clean rags and try to only touch the sides when I do this. Stain the other side the same way. Then carefully take it off and lean it against a wall, on peices of wood on the floor. flipping it to the first side to check for stain drips or fingerprints.


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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

A lot of times though, you can rub stain on the scratches and they will dissapear. You might want to go that route... I mean, its POSSIBLE, but extremely difficult to fix stained stuff without taking it all the way down.


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## APP_804 (Mar 14, 2017)

Woodco said:


> I'd avoid any filler if at all possible, especially with 'dents'. And if you are gonna do it, it needs to happen before stain. It will look like crap. You can get creative with an artis brush and some thinned stain to help blend certain things in though.
> 
> I wouldnt take that job myself, unless we were putting the same color stain on, so I would just sand the flat parts back to bare wood and start over. Redoing a front door is one thing, but a whole house full of them.... Hell no!
> 
> ...



I appreciate the info! Staining sounds like a bit of a process but very doable. The HO was mostly concerned about the dents and scratches which i didn't know how to handle. They have about 15 doors total throughout the house so I wasn't too keen on doing them either. Seems more cost effective for them to just replace them


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## MikeCalifornia (Aug 26, 2012)

Or prime and paint them. Then you can spackle any gouges or scratches beforehand.


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## Redux (Oct 27, 2018)

They’re EWP. If for some reason you decide to sand the finish off, take a look inside the cutout for door knob and look at the veneer thickness. They are likely 1/16”. Once you sand below 1/32”, you might to start exposing glue that migrated into the veneer. Most of the dents, dings, and gouges are likely deeper than the veneer thickness too, so don’t sand too deep trying to get them out. 
One way to effectively remove dents/dings is with water and/or steam. Take a little methylene chloride stripper, and dab a bit on the dent. Take some medium coarse steel wool and remove the clear finish from the area, and place a wet wad of tissue on it. The water should expand the wood, popping it out. If that doesn’t work, take a wet piece of terry towel, place it on dent, take a clothing iron on high setting, placing tip of iron on wet towel, the steam should blow it out. Gouges steam out as well on softwoods, yet the tear mark will be visible. Sometimes with old finish, steam will penetrate the finish blowing the dent out without having to use stripper. 
Sounds like a lot of work for an inexpensive door...
Good Luck!


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## lilpaintchic (Jul 9, 2014)

Alchemy Redux said:


> They’re EWP. If for some reason you decide to sand the finish off, take a look inside the cutout for door knob and look at the veneer thickness. They are likely 1/16”. Once you sand below 1/32”, you might to start exposing glue that migrated into the veneer. Most of the dents, dings, and gouges are likely deeper than the veneer thickness too, so don’t sand too deep trying to get them out.
> One way to effectively remove dents/dings is with water and/or steam. Take a little methylene chloride stripper, and dab a bit on the dent. Take some medium coarse steel wool and remove the clear finish from the area, and place a wet wad of tissue on it. The water should expand the wood, popping it out. If that doesn’t work, take a wet piece of terry towel, place it on dent, take a clothing iron on high setting, placing tip of iron on wet towel, the steam should blow it out. Gouges steam out as well on softwoods, yet the tear mark will be visible. Sometimes with old finish, steam will penetrate the finish blowing the dent out without having to use stripper.
> Sounds like a lot of work for an inexpensive door...
> Good Luck!


For the win! Veneer=no bueno.

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## finishesbykevyn (Apr 14, 2010)

Alternatively you could try to find some tinted touch up wood puddy.


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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

Those look solid to me. I've actually never seen big doors have thin veneer.


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## RH (Sep 7, 2010)

I would tend to agree that they are solid wood doors with no veneer. And from what I can see they look like fir. As Woodco has mentioned, just going over the bad spots wth a matching stain can magically make most of those small dings and scratches _almost_ disappear. Sure, they can still be seen from certain light angles and close up but will be pretty hard to see by anyone just casually looking at them. After the stain has dried, touch up the stained spots with a matching sheen clear coat - or - clear coat the entire door if need be. 

Note - You might consider doing one door using the above process to show the owners how it will look and then have them decide if it is acceptable. If not, let them know the alternative is a complete sanding, restaining, and probably three coats of clear. And since you have never done this before, bid it T&M or else you can very easily lose your ass. 

Faced with the two options, they will likely opt for the easier fix - unless they are uber picky and money is no object.


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## lilpaintchic (Jul 9, 2014)

RH said:


> I would tend to agree that they are solid wood doors with no veneer. And from what I can see they look like fir. As Woodco has mentioned, just going over the bad spots wth a matching stain can magically make most of those small dings and scratches _almost_ disappear. Sure, they can still be seen from certain light angles and close up but will be pretty hard to see by anyone just casually looking at them. After the stain has dried, touch up the stained spots with a matching sheen clear coat - or - clear coat the entire door if need be.
> 
> Note - You might consider doing one door using the above process to show the owners how it will look and then have them decide if it is acceptable. If not, let them know the alternative is a complete sanding, restaining, and probably three coats of clear. And since you have never done this before, bid it T&M or else you can very easily lose your ass.
> 
> Faced with the two options, they will likely opt for the easier fix - unless they are uber picky and money is no object.


Though I agree that they are likely solid, an inexperienced person needs to at least verify what they're working on. Either you know based on experience or you find out the hard way...unless you're smart, and put it out on pt so ya know what you're looking at prior to sanding through a few doors or 10 then trying to restrain them.

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## APP_804 (Mar 14, 2017)

I think it best to experiment with one door and go from there, charging T&M of course. At least now I have several methods to try. Not knowing what I was looking at I figured somebody on here would have some sound advice. 

PT has been a great resource for me over the past couple years and I'm so thankful to have a place to go for everything paint related. The area I'm from is a small town kind of and none of the older painters like giving out advice or tips. Thank you all for taking the time to respond to my questions. Really means a lot!


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## RH (Sep 7, 2010)

lilpaintchic said:


> Though I agree that they are likely solid, an inexperienced person needs to at least verify what they're working on. Either you know based on experience or you find out the hard way...unless you're smart, and put it out on pt so ya know what you're looking at prior to sanding through a few doors or 10 then trying to restrain them.
> 
> Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk


For sure it’s always best to assertain what you are dealing with. Case in point, I was asked to bid on refinishing a bunch of oak window sills on a newer home last summer. Just typical discoloring due to UV damage and a small amount of water issues. Always do these jobs T&M so no issues with trying to determine what surprises may occur. Good thing I did, turned out they were all a super thin oak veneer and I barely had to hit them with a medium grit paper with my Festool to burn right through. Never have run into veneer used on window casings before and hope I never do again. Told the HOs that my fix would be a one time only affair and that the next time they will have to seek out other alternatives to a simple sanding and refinishing.


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## Redux (Oct 27, 2018)

Speak of the devil...working on refinishing some of those 6 panel doors right now for a family member....here’s what you can likely expect from a 6-panel mid-grade manufactured door from 1990. Photos are of two of the more popular national brands from the early 1990’s, one a Morgan, and the other a Simpson, both nearly identical to those posted by OP. Note that the stiles are of solid core construction with 1/16” veneers, rails are solid. This type of construction was standard for just about every door from this period through current. Most doors are of solid/engineered core construction with a lamella or veneer of varying thickness. The only solid stile and rail framed panel doors I’ve ever seen where each wood member is constructed out of a single solid piece of wood through and through are those crappy ETO doors or an occasional vertical grain fir entry door. 
Doors are constructed with cores to provide dimensional stability, prevent twisting, bowing, as well as to minimize expansion and contraction across the width due to changes in moisture. Also, fir has a tighter grain than pictured in the OP’s post, EWP, Radiata, & Ponderosa Pine having a coarser grain similar to OP’s 2nd photo. Even the panels nowadays on most of the six panel softwood mid-grade passage doors are vacuum pressed veneers over MDF cores. 
Always best to test before going at it with the Rotex...


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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

Good to know.


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## Tprice2193 (Oct 3, 2017)

Looks like six panel pine door to me. I doubt seriously if any part of this door is veneer. Looks oil stained, rather blotchy job, with a couple coats of poly. Get some Restor-a-Finish and some OOOO steel wool and rub it down. The Restor-a-Finish comes in several different flavors and is a very light stain. Scratches and dirt will disappear. Dings are patina so don't worry about them. Fifteen to 20 min per door and it 
will look 10x better. I had same project in one of my rentals. I stained, polyed, and installed mine 25 yr ago. I used Restor-a-finish on them last year and they look beautiful. Can't believe the krud that comes off.


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## lilpaintchic (Jul 9, 2014)

Tprice2193 said:


> Looks like six panel pine door to me. I doubt seriously if any part of this door is veneer. Looks oil stained, rather blotchy job, with a couple coats of poly. Get some Restor-a-Finish and some OOOO steel wool and rub it down. The Restor-a-Finish comes in several different flavors and is a very light stain. Scratches and dirt will disappear. Dings are patina so don't worry about them. Fifteen to 20 min per door and it
> will look 10x better. I had same project in one of my rentals. I stained, polyed, and installed mine 25 yr ago. I used Restor-a-finish on them last year and they look beautiful. Can't believe the krud that comes off.


I forgot about that stuff....you're right. It works well to clean up old finishes without a lot of hassle. Used it on a building full of solid commercial doors a few years ago. It was perfect for the task.

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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

What I've personally noticed with stainable doors is that they do have a separate core, but the veneer on the frames is about a 1/4." With the OP's pictures, you can see that the corners are very rounded, maybe even routed. You really wouldnt want to do that with veneer, or it would look like crap.

I dont see using a thin veneer on crappy pine saving anyone any money.

But lesson learned to not just assume.


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## Redux (Oct 27, 2018)

Worked with a developer in the 70's thru early 80's finishing thousands of those stock manufactured stain grade doors on semi-custom tract housing, ragging them with stain as fast as they would come off the truck, taking a mechanic about 3 hrs to stain all the doors for a avg size 2,300 sq ft colonial. Money was tight back then, having to produce to make the numbers, and having to stain all trim, doors/jambs, and window sash in no more than 2 1/2 man days to make a day's pay. Hadn't had any problems with the doors until 1982 when we started using shellac washcoats as a pre-stain conditioner, the veneers delaminating/blistering due to alcohol softening the veneer adhesive. It wasn't until 1998 when Morgan sold their manufacturing division to Jeld-Wen, that most of the manufacturing went offshore, switching to vac pressed veneers on the panels and the use of Radiata Pine. The first time I ever sprayed WB clear was on a batch of doors with veneered panels which was paper thin. The veneers on the panel tapered profiles started delaminating/blistering, but settled down after drying. You can tell if the panels are veneered by looking at the top and bottom of the panel profile. Panels in OP's photos appear to be solid. Solid panels will transition into endgrain on the bevel, taking stain darker, while veneered panels will have face grain on the taper. I haven't used or finished any of those doors since aside from the ones posted, having 3 different brands there as a result of three additions over the years, all w/ 1/16" veneers. I currently work pre-construction with window/door manufacturers as well as with millwork shops, drawing up veneer layup specs for all doors and cabinetry on any of my projects. Before finishing, I require cross section mock-ups of all veneered surfaces for approval before fabrication and finishing. Builders actually appreciate it because it gets them off the hook. Window, door, and millwork packages account for 90% of my business.


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## canopainting (Feb 12, 2013)

Through some dye in a HVLP cup gun mixed with Lacquer thinner or clear shellac and tone them to where you want them, then clear coat.


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