Sealer that won't swell wood?

[Greg Guarino]

I have yet another dumb question.

I had a sticky door. I planed it down a little. Success!

I happened to be using some poly on another project and decided it would be convenient to seal the planed area of the door with the same brush. Can you guess? It started to stick again.

I planed it down a tad more. Once again, success!

Is there anything I can use to seal it against moisture without the sealer itself swelling the wood? It's a solid-core door, old. If anyone is wondering why it stuck in the first place, I think the settling of the house has put the frame a tiny bit out of square.

Greg Guarino

[tiredofspam]

Water based or Oil based poly?

Oil based generally doesn't swell the wood. I use shellac for seal> I have yet another dumb question.

[Larry Blanchard]

dewaxed shellac.

[Larry Jaques]

Oh, grasshopper. Why have you not yet learned that finish both expands the wood -and- adds a layer of finish which is not zero thickness?

Once you learn that, you plane a couple/three more strokes which makes up for the added thickness and the door doesn't stick any longer.

Later that year, you learn that wood swells/narrows in summer/winter, so you plane it more to make up for that change, too. Both doors if they're paired.

We all go through these learning stages. Have fun!

P.S: Stain and poly are their own punishment.

-- That's the thing about needs. Sometimes, when you get them met, you don't need them anymore. -- Michael Patrick King

[CW]

Water based poly will raise the grain slighty but not near enough to make the door not fit. A coat of poly has thickness. If the fit was so close that a coat of poly was enough to make it stick, it is to close. Also, a fit that close will cause problems as the weather changes. Open it up and be sure to taper the inside edge. Doors don't open straight.

[Dave]

Might be prudent for him to leave the proper fitting of the door until summer when wood expands because of the humidity.

[Larry Blanchard]

If he lives *east* of the Rockies!

OK, I'm overreacting. But living in Washington, and previously in Idaho and California, I get a little tired of the assumption than everyone has the same weather.

For that matter, not everyone in this group lives in the US - for all I know their weather may follow yet another pattern.

[Larry Jaques]

Um, why doesn't Dave know that September 7th IS summer, and will be for over 2 more weeks?

Yeah, you don't -have- summer in Warshington, do you?

-- That's the thing about needs. Sometimes, when you get them met, you don't need them anymore. -- Michael Patrick King

[Greg Guarino]

We live in NY City, so humidity is a factor. This did indeed happen in the summer. But that can be tricky, as the indoor environment in my home is probably quite a bit less humid than outdoors. Air conditioner run when we are home, and the windows are (mostly) closed when we are not.

I think that perhaps I had cut it a little too fine on the first go, and the poly was enough to make it stick again, although not as much as it had originally. I understand that shellac has a shelf life, and I only need about a brushful. So maybe I'll take my chances with some poly again. I probably have a can of non-water base around.

We agree that sealing it with *something* is a good idea, don't we?