Stripping and painting a Victorian external door

[News]

There is an external door at one side of our house, that we never use. Judging by the state of it, neither has anyone else for the last hundred years or so. This afternoon, I bravely applied the hot air gun to it, with a view to repainting.

The white paint is coming off quite easily, but leaving behind a horrible green 'paint'? Victorian lead based paint?

Question really is can I just sand whatever it is, slap on a coat of primer/sealer followed by undercoat then topcoat, or have I really got to get all the green stuff completely removed?

Any thoughts?

[Nightjar]

If it hasn't come off easily, it ought to make a perfectly good base for over painting. Old paints that have lost their solvent are virtually immune to heat stripping, even with a high power blow torch.

In any case, old green paint is something to be very cautious of. Emerald green paint contained arsenic and wasn't banned until about 50 years ago. I would paint over it without sanding and leave any sanding until you have a nice thick layer of new paint.

[News]

In message , "Nightjar "@?.?.invalid> writes

Oh bugger. It did not occur to me that it could be arsenic based, but having now Googled the subject, that could be the answer.

Yesterday, I stripped about half the door, using a hot air gun. Luckily, I started on the worst areas. Tempted now to just lightly rub down the remaining white paint, and then repaint the whole door without any further stripping.

[Nightjar]

You thought you just had to worry about lead? :-)

Provided it gives a sound base for repainting, that is what I would do.

[News]

Yes :-)

A little more careful rubbing down of the remaining white paint today, and cold scraping of the area treated with the hot air gun yesterday. It is not going to be perfect, but better than it was.

[Johny B Good]

There may be lead based paint used but, more worryingly, is the fact that Victorian green pigment was achieved by the liberal use of an Arsenic compound.

[News]

In message , Johny B Good writes

Thanks JB. Yes, see Colin's comments. It is a large, solid external door, 44 inches wide, but in a bit of a state. There are cracks which I have now filled, and painted the already stripped areas with primer. Next will be an undercoat over the whole door which, with the primer, should safely cover the remains of the original green paint.

I stopped removing paint when I realised what I was probably dealing with, so, having got two coats on, I will then try to gently rub down and feather the areas where stripped meet unstripped. It will not be perfect, but a lot better than before I started, hopefully. I still have a supply of real oil based Dulux white gloss, which should protect it nicely.

Not today though. Raining :-(

[Nightjar]

On 05/09/2014 02:16, Johny B Good wrote: ...

Victorian paint generally used white lead as a base, whatever the final colour. As noted, emerald green was based upon arsenic, while vermilion used mercury. However, food could contain equally nasty substances; red lead was used to make meat look fresher, as well as giving Gloucester cheese its colour. Strychnine was used in rum and beer, ferric ferrocyanide in tea, lead sulphate and bisulphate of mercury in confectionery, lead chromate in mustard and copper was used to improve the colour of butter, bread and gin. By comparison, a bit of horse meat in 'beef' looks rather tame.