Sanding old doors?

Frith

My cottage had every original feature removed in the 1970s and artex, varnished orange paintwork and general miserableness added. 

Replastering etc finished but what do you suggest for the doors? I’m going to guess they’re made of pine and they’re tongue and groove planks with diagonal planks across. 

Where they don’t have thick fluorescent varnish (complete with dribbles), the wood is pale.

Can I just sand it off? 

Norman_Castle

I'd try varnish remover with a light sanding to finish.

bob_a_builder

Whatever happened to 'dipping' - of course not suitable in current situation - but that used to be the preferred way of take wood back to natural ?

FreeBear

bob_a_builder said: Whatever happened to 'dipping' - of course not suitable in current situation - but that used to be the preferred way of take wood back to natural ?

Just had a bunch of period doors dipped & stripped just as this lockdown kicked off. I had already spent a day with a hot air gun doing one door. Decided it would make more sense to send them all off @ £30 each. Got them back a few days ago, and it was certainly worth having them done (my time is better spent doing other "stuff").

Grenage

FreeBear said:

bob_a_builder said: Whatever happened to 'dipping' - of course not suitable in current situation - but that used to be the preferred way of take wood back to natural ?

Just had a bunch of period doors dipped & stripped just as this lockdown kicked off. I had already spent a day with a hot air gun doing one door. Decided it would make more sense to send them all off @ £30 each. Got them back a few days ago, and it was certainly worth having them done (my time is better spent doing other "stuff").

Absolutely; We picked up a tatty but ornate cast aluminium table and chairs a couple of years ago.  I spent about 3 days trying to get the finish off before I took them to get dipped and powder coated.  Life is just too short for stripping paint.