Preparing new doors

gazza975526570

Ive had new internal doors fitted.

All the ustairs doors are bare pine and im planning on having them stained.

Ive initially rubbed them down - am i ok to now stain? Ive been told i will need to stain, rub down again and then restain. Is this necessary? if so when i rub down am i just gently rubbing?

Im just not sure what the point of that would be?!

Cheers.....

ormus

a perfectionist would rub down between all coats. using very fine sandpaper. i knew a chap who painted a mini with 14 coats! and he rubbed it down between each coat with wet/dry paper and soap!

for a diyer its not really required, assuming the first coat isnt as rough as a bears !!!.

misgrace

I would apply knotting before I stained the doors, then sand down, depending on the quality of the doors, some pine doors are as rough as ......, if they are decent pine doors, then you might want to use wet and dry sandpaper, get a softish one.
But be aware, even after you have stained and the stain is dry, if you rub your hand over the door they will still feel slightly rough, its the stain that roughs them up a bit.

I have not long finished oak veneered doors, and they are a high quality door, I used the soft wet and dry (wet, just plain warm water), and they were as smooth as a babies behind, I used just the varnish, and after it dried, it felt roughish again, I was doing a couple of coats anyway, so I wet and dried it again the next day, and again it was very smooth, after the 2nd coat had dried it still felt slightly roughish, so be warned it might happen with your doors.

theloft

After sanding the doors, clean all the dust etc. off,and before staining, go over them with a rag damped in White Spirit (only takes a little while to dry.) I would then use a water based stain which you can buy in gloss or satin finish. DRies nice and quickly and really easy to apply.
DO NOT USE varnish or polyurethane gloss. This is a real pig if you want to give them a re-coat as they have to be rubbed down properly, whereas the water-based stuff, you can just whizz over with a piece of fine sanding paper (use the green stuff, it lasts longer can't remember the name). Then apply your second coat after removing all dust particles again.