Brushing wax patchy on bare wood...

babyangel10

Hi there,

I'm in the process of stripping all my white painted door frames and stair parts back to bare wood, then brush waxing them with... erm... Brushing Wax!

I have replaced all the skirts and archi's with new as the old ones were very plain, and the wax has 'taken' great on there, but the door frames are just patchy and it doesn't 'take' very well at all. :mad:

I've stripped the paint off with a heat gun, Nitromors where necessary (to remove bits of primer) and then sanded it too, until no more primer remains visible, but it still won't have it.

I'm suspecting that the primer must have 'soaked' in and therefore is still lurking under the surface ready to pounce on the wax!

Any ideas folks? I'm happy to change to varnish or stain if that'll help, but the only option I can see at the mo is to change all the door frames, which I'm not too confident about doing TBH.

Thanks for any advice

babyangel10

Anybody?! Just a guess will do!

Peartree

No expert on these things but have, of necessity, had to go for quite a bit of amateur problem solving over the years (and given no expert has put their two pennyworth in here so hopefully I won't be humiliated!)...

Idea 1. Sometimes it's difficult to get all the residue of paint stripper out of wood so you could give it a few more good washes down with white spirit, then hot soapy water, then rinse and leave dry out. Try using a scrubbing brush and a lot of elbow grease.

Idea 2. When I was trying to get the last bits of residue out of the grain of a staircase I was stripping (what was I thinking of!) I found a household steamer v good.

Idea 3. Was at total wits end trying to get heavy wax residue out of a bit of(obviously not precious) furniture I wanted to paint - I resorted to the stuff you can buy to remove tar off cars. I think it's probably the same as cellulose thinners, etc. Anyway, it worked a treat, just melted the wax away.

Idea 4. My usual fall back of recommending you contact the technical services department of one of the companies who produce products for the trade. You could try my own favourite, Johnstones.

babyangel10

Thanks Peartree, some good advice there, so you deffo aren't humiliated!

Never thought about the steamer - have got a wallpaper stripper and a household steamer, so will give them a go for sure.

Thanks again,

Gerty x