Finishing Mahogany Exterior Door

[-MIKE-]

Client has new exterior Mahogany door installed. Typical 3-footer with

1ft. sidelights. Guy who put it in said he doesn't like finishing, but has another guy who does it, and estimated he would charge $6-800. Other guy shows up and tells them it'll be more like $1200.

Inside, I'm thinking, "Heck, *I'll* do it for $6-800!" but try to play it cool. So, I'm looking into it.

What am I missing, here? Is this really a thousand dollar job!? What's the best finish to use? Spar Varnish?

I'm guessing you're talking about several coats to do it right, so is that the reason for the high bid?

[Jay Pique]

Penetrating epoxy sealer underneath Epifanes marine varnish performed very well according to a FWW article from several years ago. Issue #205

Probably 3 or 4 coats of varnish I'd guess. If you have a sprayer it doesn't take much actual time - but it's like a full day in between coats.

[Jay Pique]

Ooops - I overlooked that it's already installed. That's not ideal....

[-MIKE-]

I just read that article. :-)

[J. Clarke]

I'd say find out what the other guys are bidding. Might be Awlgrip or the like, which you do _not_ want to spray if you don't know how to protect yourself.

[Ed Pawlowski]

My guess is the guy sized up the customer. I've know tradesmen that doubled their price if the customer was a doctor or lawyer, added 50% for anyone driving a fancy car.

I can see $600+ though. Couple of hours for each of three trips. 2 hours on site, travel, only a half day for other work.

[Leon]

In Houston they are charging $4~$600, sand and refinish.

[nailshooter41]

This question is a bit like one of my previous clients I ran into over the weekend. "Hey Robert... I have an office in my wife's dental practice and I want the ceilings torn off, I *think* they are acoustic tile over sheetro ck, but it could be tile over plywood. Also, I need the walls stripped off and the cabinets removed so I can upgrade the walls to new hold new free ha nging cabinets. Oh yeah, and a couple three new plugs. How much will that cost?"

Let your mind wonder.

So, since finishing/refinishing is certainly part of what I do, I would ask this: Clear coat or paint? (Why hasn't that been asked?) What shape is th e door in? Need a lot of prep? Need to be puttied, have surface work done ? Does it have panels? How many? Does it have glass in it? Can the glas s come out easily or will it have to be taped off?

What kind of finish will the door owner tolerate? The smell of oil based pr oducts will linger in the house for days. Some people have now decided tha t even latex paint fumes can bring on delirium. With that in mind, the $12

00 guy may have decided to take the door off and take it to his shop for fi nishing to get that "factory" finish. If so, like me he probably puts a pl ywood barrier across the door hole while the actual door is off site. Some of my clients have loved the convenience of having me pick up the door, bl ock the entry and be gone in 30 minutes, then return in a week with a finis hed door that I put back up and install the hardware and it's finished.

So, what kind of finish, how much prep, what style door, and on or off site finish, and how will it be applied?

Robert

[-MIKE-]

Clear coat. If it was paint, I wouldn't be here, asking. :-)

Brand new door- perfect condition. Some holes need puttied-- not sure why installer didn't do that. Lots of glass panels, including glass sidelights. Probably taped off.

I suppose I could take the door with me, but I'd still have the frame and sidelights/trim to finish. The whole thing is newly installed and raw mahogany.

[DerbyDad03]

Is installing a raw wooden door a standard practice?

[nailshooter41]

Yes, depending on what is being done. When I retrofit a door it is always unfinished. That allows for the door to be trimmed, fitted, bored, mortise d etc., to get a good fit. It isn't necessarily the cutting, chiseling, etc ., that is done to fit the door to the opening but to allow for all the han ding needed to do so.

OTOH, if I am putting in a new door, jamb, trims, etc., with a door prehung in a jamb, I finish the door off site and put it in the frame and take it to the job to hang. All it needs is just one coat of paint on the trim/jam b after hanging and caulking.

Most of my retrofits of "door only" are almost always wood since you can't trim (of course you can a bit) a metal or fiberglass door to fit an existin g jamb. We have a lot of soil movement here, so by the time the folks need a new door, the jamb can be all kinds of out of square and plumb requiring a lot of fitting.

Robert

[-MIKE-]

I don't know. There has to be some logical reason. All I can think of is so all the trim-out can be finished at the same time. However, I also think it's better to put a finish on all the surfaces, including bottom. That way when it shrinks, there's still protection. I think it would be optimal to do all finishing in shop on all wood surfaces, up until last coat. Then do last coat after installation.

[Markem]

So it is installed and you would be weather dependent to finish it, or you could build a plastic tent and that entails cost. If you have scaffolding then it can makes a great tent, heating it though????

[Jay Pique]

I'm trying to think of a "logical" reason why they would install an entirely new wood door system without finishing first. Having trouble...

JP

[Scott Lurndal]

Perhaps because it's not real wood? I've seen expensive "mahogany" entry doors made from a molded fibreglass that needs to be finished using a special finish from the door manufacturer.

[-MIKE-]

Exactly. It's actually under an overhang which would make tarping it off pretty easy.

[Leon]

Some people wait way too long to refinish and the door begins to fall apart. Or they want a different style.

[-MIKE-]

It's wood.

[nailshooter41]

Back on the subject of price. I guess it depends on how you charge and wha t you charge for your time.

If you are finishing in place there will be a lot of travel time and unless you are up to speed on taping off each lite separately, the all the time t hat it takes to cut around said lites, I would be careful on my estimates. I would want to have my finish in mind, too. I have put on too much "fast dry" clear coating that didn't. You will be able to go around the jamb/tr im pretty quick, and build multiple coats.

DEPENDING ON THE FINISH CHOSEN, I could see somewhere around $1200. Dust c ontrol? Multiple coats? Floor/wall protection? Removing hardware (dead bol t, lockset, peep hole, interior chain/lever, etc.) and reinstalling it late r each time? How many coats, how many trips?

For poly/varnish/and the other similar finishes, 8 hours is dry to the touc h but will often stay sticky. Closing the door on a jamb coated at the sam e time will cause fouling of the finish sometimes after 10 hours.

I like to use the polyurethane conversion lacquers, but those are all spray ed. I don't like to hand cut in around door lites, I don't like to screw w ith hardware coming off and reinstalling, and I hate multiple trips for the same task. If you can block off enough to spray, you could get three coat s of one of the poly convertibles on in a day. I have done as many as five .

I would be more involved in trying to figure out my time based on the finis h used and job site conditions than I would the actual finishing. You got the finishing. IF the door had a lot of lites, and IF they wanted the insi de finished to match, and IF I had to fill nail holes and sand out scuffs, I could see $1200 for a PREMIUM finish. I would probably have trips to th e site to do all the prep, remove the hardware, cover the floors/concrete/p orch mateiral and apply the finish, and return later to reinstall the hardw are and pick up my drop cloths, etc. as long after product application as p ossible. Three coats? Six trips.

That being said, I spray new metal/fiberglass doors with another specialty product (commercial use fast dry) enamel on occasion with two coats of pain t and I only charge $500 and try to sell the client new hardware to bump th e price a bit. The enamel I use gets so hard (if properly applied) that yo u can't scratch it with your fingernail and it holds up great. I wish I co uld stock up on it; my Sherwin Williams rep told me they are going to quit selling the product to the public, if they haven't already. Too many VOCs.

So just as a talking point, what is your "per pass" side charge on a brushe d door with 6 - 8 panels, no windows or lites, pre-primed or already painte d? Talking minor prep, painted in place or int the client garage.

Robert

[-MIKE-]

Great info! I guess it's not that unreasonable after all. Like I tell often my clients, "There's often a lot more to doing something than most people who are inexperienced at doing it realize."

Two things I hate doing.

1. Being tempted to take shortcuts and rush because I'm not making enough on a job.
2. Not making enough on a job.

Sounds like, if I use the proper material, that I might be able to bang this out in a couple days, having a third, short visit for the final coat.

They only aspect of this job that still makes me tempted to do it is that the client is right down the street from me.

I will probably tell them that after further research that the $1200 they were quoted is not unreasonable *if* the guy does excellent work.