finishing interior doors

[AndrewDKurtz]

I'm finishing a ton of the doors in my home but this is my first time. Can anyone out there give me some tips? I've finished wood before; it's just that I'm not quite sure what position the doors should be in. Should the doors be left hanging? Should they be finished horizontally/vertically? Should all of the hardware preps, tops, sides, and bottoms be finished with as many coats as the front and back? I only have one sawhorse, so maybe I need to get another. Any help you might have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[SteveW]

I painted all the doors for my new house by setting up several sawhorses, preparing the doors, and painting one side at a time, letting that side dry, then turning them over to finish.

[C & M]

Buy yourself a pair of sawhorses so that they are the same size. You'll find them just about anywhere and you will use them forever. You didn't mention what type of finishing you are doing but whatever it is there are a few basic principals which are true.

1. If you have the room to lay them horizontally you will have less trouble with sags in your finish.

1. Set up your horses and connect them with a couple of 2x4x8's . Lay one door on the 2x's at a time and lay on your finish. Lay your next door on the opposite end so that you can easily reach the entire surface. When done, have someone help you and lift it up and lay it beside the other one. I have slid them and gotten away with it but used rags under the door to avoid marring them.

2. Application of finish to all surfaces is at your discretion but I would think that you would like to have a nice build up on each side as well as the door knob edge. The top, bottom ends and the hinge edge won't get the same degree of traffic, if any. Just be sure that the hinge edge looks nice when done. Iit will be visible. I am personally too anal to neglect any surface. When, the next time you want to do this? Does 'never' sound right?

1. Pleeease remove all hardware before doing anything. I about puke when I see these decorating shows and they tape around the wall outlet plates and the door knobs. painting over the hinges.

[firstjois]

I have two sawhorses and haven't room for any more, even if they'd collapse when asked. Instead I keep a few large cardboard boxes slid inbehind things where I think they won't be noticed. Works just fine.

Josie

[World Traveler]

Some recommend leaving the bottom unfinished to allow the door to better accomodate seasonal changes in temperature and humidity. Regards --

[Battleax]

Seasonal changes are the reason you MUST paint the bottom, as well as everything else.

[George E. Cawthon]

Not a must, maybe not even common. Many interior door tops and/or bottom are raw wood. Most of the bottoms of old time solid doors that I have seen do not have paint on them. There is stain but no finish on the top or bottom of the hollow core doors in my 1970's built house. The tops of many hollow core doors bought at HF or Lowes are not primed although the other surfaces are.

Sure it is smart to finish all surfaces. But furniture manufactures commonly do not finish any surface that doesn't show, even though applying a finish would add little to the cost of the item.

[Mike]

I'm not a painter but I'll tell how the painters we work around do it. First, they spray all of the wood, including the doors, with an airless sprayer. All of them spray the doors upright but some leave the doors hanging and some move them all to one room and have them standing against the wall. Most (if not all) door manufacturers require that all 6 sides be finished or the warranty is voided. It may be a fine line as to whether or not you need the same number of coats on each side.

Mike O.

[John Grossbohlin]

A commercial shop I'm familiar with paints the bottoms and then screws two cleats to the bottom of the doors. The cleats make it such that the doors can stand upright and they can then paint all the way around without having to move the door. The holes in the bottoms are touched up later. When there are a bunch of doors standing on cleats it looks sort of like Stonehenge... ;~)

John

[Mike]

My guess is that's because the painters didn't really care, as many don't today. I've been hanging doors for too many years now and every warranty sheet or sticker that I've read requires finish on all 6 sides or the manufacturer's warranty is void. Of course the warranties are normally only good for one year anyway.

Mike O.

[firstjois]

Very funny :) With my luck they'd domino.

I keep a couple of three inch sponge rollers for doing narrow things like door edges, they wash out easily or can be tossed but they speed things along since I don't use a sprayer.

Josie

[C & M]

I'm thinking that even though the material cost per door seems small they have to multiply that by hundreds if not thousands and the savings add up, in their eyes.

[George E. Cawthon]

That fallacious argument is used often. Yes the costs add up with hundreds of doors. But of course so would receipts of one added a few pennies per door.

Automobile companies use that argument all the time for not spend> I'm thinking that even though the material cost per door seems small they

[World Traveler]

Well, I've learned something here. As I recall, the recommendation to leave the bottom of an interior door unfinished came from a High School wood shop class, to keep moisture from being trapped inside the door. After the comments in this thread, I went to a couple of door suppliers web sites (e.g.,

and they require that all six sides be finished to maintain the warranty. So either my memory is at fault, or my old shop teacher was giving out bad information,

-- or things changed in the [## exact number garbled - and it's going to stay that way] decades since I was in school.

Regards

[Patriarch]

"firstjois" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

One of the benefits of making yor own sawhorses is that you can build them at the right height for the tasks you intend to take on.

Painting doors, laid flat, on sawhorses at 36"-40" in height is _much_ easier on my back. And it brings them into bifocal range, too.

Patriarch

[Larry Jaques]

On Thu, 30 Jun 2005 10:46:45 -0500, the opaque Patriarch spake:

Those two points are muy importantè! for us old folks, huh?

- This product cruelly tested on defenseless furry animals - --------------------------------------------------------

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[Leon]

If painting, leave them hanging and you can do both sides at once.