Yesterday my wife Debbie and I were doing the final preparation on a full size room door that she stripped the paint off a few weeks ago. She had used the PeelAway stuff; it is the only product we have found that takes the bottom layers of milk paint off of the ~240 year old heart pine doors. Debbie uses rubber gloves and takes the usual precautions, etc. After the surface is cleaned and neutralized so the pH is correct, there is usually a some still remaining bits of paint in the narrow crevices in the molding and flat surfaces of the door rails and panels.
In the past, I'd have spent the better part of an afternoon carefully hand scraping and sanding to get it ready for paint. This time, we did it together. Debbie has used various handled paint scrapers before, but since we were doing finished work I pulled out two card scrapers. Well, in just a matter of minutes, she was using the scraper like a pro! I showed her how to vary her attack angle so that "furrows" would not appear. That really did it! She smoothed out all the flat sections on the entire door using the hand scraper. I was really impressed at how easily she picked up and discovered the finer points of using this simple, but often overlooked tool! She rightly noted that such a simple piece of metal shouldn't look like it can produce such a nice finish, but it can, even on pine. We finished the door in much less time than me doing it alone and it looks great.
Even with this success, Debbie declined my suggestion that she go into cabinetmaking as a career...
John
Re: My wife: a student of cabinet scraper usage...
>John...don't go for the whole cabinet maker routine. Just make sure she will chip in labor when you really need the help!JR (lucky guy that has a dextrous wife)
Re: My wife: a student of cabinet scraper usage...
>"See Hon, these old tools ready do work, and what a great job they do too, huh? Oh, by the way, need anything from the flea market?" Sounds like a fun time at the Anianoabode :~)
John, which number Peal Away did you use? I'm curious because LOML, um, I mean we still have 2/3rds of our enclosed porch to do and need more Peal Away. The big box stores around here only sell #6, and that didn't work too well for the paint we had. A friend gave us a 1/4 bucket of leftover #?? (brain fart happening) and that worked great.
The door sounds like it's coming out very nicely. You going to finish it with the Krylon "Colonial Blue" you picked up on sale?
Raymond
who can still point out with pride the clapboard and a half that LOML planed the bead on.
Re: My wife: a student of cabinet scraper usage...
We use Peel Away #1 for stripping the old doors. We have sent out molding and doors to be dipped and they turned out OK. The Peel Away 1 seems to do a great job; it just takes lots of time and it is messy. I think we usually get it at Sipersteins in the convenient 5-gallon containers.
No, "Colonial Blue" Krylon is NOT in the cards for our painting needs at this time. Nice try though... This particular door will be painted the gray-green color we found at the bottom paint layer on the baseboard and had color matched.