Old Interior Doors

You can get thin MDF and thin plywood.

I think the thinnest MDF I've seen is around 1/8", 3mm. That won't 'look like wood' really, though it is nice and smooth.

You can get plywood thinner than 1/8", I remember using 1/16" ply on a model boat many moons ago. That would work pretty well I think, and it *is* wood! :-)

Actually, you can get 1mm MDF - eg eBay 124529554607 - and I've used this to stick to the bottom of some left over fancy tiles to use as pot stands etc. As you say, it doesn't look much like wood, it would probably stand out as too smooth.

But would plywood also crack?

Originally the panels could move so that they wouldn't split. Overpainting them has fasened them to the sides so when they move they split. I would replace them with thin ply but make sure that they weren't painted in.

Jonathan

Thanks, I realise the panels should be free, but I want a quick fix.

I had the same problem - back in the day when stripped wood was popular. Still is with me.

I carefully cut the beading off one side. It's a stock moulding in London, so possible to replace with new if needed.

Bashed the broken panel out - it fits in a groove in the frame.

Found some suitable thickness ply with a veneer that looked OK. Cut it slightly oversize so it could be wiggled (and glued) into the groove.

On the side of the door where I'd removed the moulding (chose the worst side for this) I removed it from the other three panels and replaced with new - glued and pinned. Stained both the moulding and panel to the best match I could achieve and gave the door a coat of clear matt varnish.

Still pleased with the results. Did much the same to the panelling round the bay window.

I'm sure there might be a high tech filler to sort the cracks in the panelling that could be stained to be invisible. They'd certainly manage that on The Repair Shop. But I'm talking about 40 years ago.

There are plenty of companies that will strip down old doors using a dipping process. Might be worthwhile doing and you might discover the door is in better condition than you imagine.

Richard

Or you may find the reason it was painted in the first place :)

Yes, I did that. Some of them are a bit ropey but I've got used to it, and overall much prefer the look of a stripped door to painted.

Ask Barry Bucknell

oh yes. Pine was the MDF of the victorian age, and they spent a long time covering up its awfulness.

I remember my dad did that, and my first house had it on some doors which I removed PDQ. We had loads of woodchip paper too, but thankfully, no Artex. . Aesthetically it was s**te, but it did give the doors more solidity and better sound and heat insulation.

Can you still get Fablon?

I believe so. Ick.

I was "persuaded" once to strip stair spindles and banister back to wood. This was on something built a year before Queen Victoria's death. It was a exercise in complete frustration. The top layer of paint did come off with a liquid paint stripper to find that the undercoat was similar to tar. All skirting/picture rail etc seems to have painted in a thick dark brown varnish. Getting a few stair spindles back to near wood revealed poor quality wood and assembled with clout nails with nail holes filled with a a putty. I had the mistake of not just checking a small section before applying the paint stripper to most of the woodwork on the stairs.

My parents purchased a house in the 1960s and that is the first thing that was done to all the doors. The open under-stairs and all the way up the the banisters was also clad in hardboard.

I have had similar experiences.

For all its ghastliness a modern MDF fake panelled door is streets ahead of a stripped pine monstrosity, and if you want a real wood door, well buy one or make one

The first thing I did when we moved into a 1911 house in 1977 was to remove the hardboard from the doors and and banisters.

I was perhaps lucky that the previous owners of this place weren't into DIY. So it was largely untouched. Apart from repairs to WW2 bomb damage - so all 'new' plasterboard ceilings. Sadly, the cornices went at the same time.