I am looking for advice on how to refinish a couple of interior doors. I think they were stained and then topcoated with a semi gloss polyurethane. They are basically really dirty. Should I / could I strip and restain? Or could I get away with sanding and recoating with polyurethane ?
Thanks
Yes...I hope so:
I'm dealing with a similar situation and am using a matching shade of Minwax Polyblend to feather into the existing (once the degraded finish is cleaned up) then topcoating with their Spar Urethane.
A few days will tell.
Good luck.
If it's just the poly that is really dirty then you shouldn't need to sand at all. The poly should clean up with anything up to and including paint thinner. The obvious caution is that you would want to apply paint thinner on a dampened rag and not a lot of it, so you don't soften the poly.
What kind of "dirty" are you talking about here? If the existing poly was put on right, then just about anything you'd typically find in a household environment will usually just be a dirt or grime layer on top of the poly - no need to sand. If it were not put on right and did not seal the surface well so that the grime actually penetrated into the wood, then sanding will likely be in order as will matching the stain or posibbly even restaining the whole door, then applying new poly. Do try to get whatever it is off though since no stain is going to hide what's beneath it. You'll see blotching and differing depth of stain penetration/color where the grime is if you don't get all of the grime off.
I agree with the light sanding - I should have said this in my earlier response.
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