Repainting wood doors

You painted oak? :^(

For interior use like that, I'd use Bondo. That is what they used at work ten years ago on 90 year old wood doors, to replace the collectible brass doorknobs with ADA-compliant levers at a lower height, and none of the filled areas seem to have popped or cracked.

-- aem sends...

How big are the dings? Way less than a dime's depth?

Bondo will work great on interior wood work but it's a lot more work than

Crawford's Paste

Hundreds of little dings.

Glad to know vinyl spackle is a good choice, because I have some of that on hand already.

So many chores today!

Have you tried an iron and a wet washcloth? If they are dents, not scratches, most will raise right back up.

Jim

Take a close look at each defect. What I call a ding is a depression in the wood due to crushed wood fibers. If that is indeed the case, the ding can be easily steamed out. Put the corner/edge of a wet paper towel or cotton cloth over the defect and touch it with the tip of an iron. Repeat until the ding disappears. Allow to dry and sand smooth with 220-grit.

I call it a "gouge" when wood is removed. Unfortunately steaming won't work so well. I like to use Bondo, prime, paint for gouge defects in the wood. The Bondo cures strong and fast, paints well. Not saying putty or spackle won't work well, but I think Bondo is better.

I've always used spackle - so special type - to fill dings and defects on painted wood. I have also used wood filler - has caution for not breathing sanding dust due to silicates - for bare wood, with good results.

Wow, I wish I'd read this first.

Oh, well, the job's done. The spacle worked great, and after painting, the doors are smooth and new-looking.

My 12-year-old son got to learn that sanding is a lot more work than just doing a neat job with the spackle in the first place. :)

As far as painting the doors in the first place, when we had an addition built upstairs, the wife wanted all white trim. So we re-used the 2 doors that we already had, in addition to the new doors.

And they were all dinged up before.

The bondo bit is interesting and something I never thought of before. I can see where it might be good with gouges on painted doors, especially when there is substantial surface damage or missing wood. I assume though, that with stained doors (or whatever), it would look pretty bad, would it not? Plastic wood with very fine sanding dust in it still seems like the best way there; or do you think I'm in error?

Just curious,

Twayne`

Mitch-

That's why I suggested Crawford's Free Spackling Paste (sorry for the original typo)

.....drys fast, sands WAY easier than most spackling compounds...like

cheers Bob.