Old front door - filling small holes, cracks? Car stuff?
Discussion
Hi All
I am preparing for Spring and need to paint my original Victorian oak/pine external front door. Inside and out it has quite a few small dents and marks where locks have been changed etc. Someone said to me the best thing to use is a car body hardener....? Does anyone know about this?
Do you fill the bear wood first and then sand and prime?
Your thoughts and experience would be really welcome,
Season Greetings
Sparky
I am preparing for Spring and need to paint my original Victorian oak/pine external front door. Inside and out it has quite a few small dents and marks where locks have been changed etc. Someone said to me the best thing to use is a car body hardener....? Does anyone know about this?
Do you fill the bear wood first and then sand and prime?
Your thoughts and experience would be really welcome,
Season Greetings
Sparky
http://www.screwfix.com/p/ronseal-high-performance...
Any 2 part filler will probably be fine. I've used the above and found it be really good, although mixing it is a pain in the ass. It goes off rock solid and is pretty easy to sand back.
If you're going over oil gloss with another oil gloss paint, then I would sand everything back, do the filling, clean it all down and get rid of the dust and then 2 coats with the new gloss.
Any 2 part filler will probably be fine. I've used the above and found it be really good, although mixing it is a pain in the ass. It goes off rock solid and is pretty easy to sand back.
If you're going over oil gloss with another oil gloss paint, then I would sand everything back, do the filling, clean it all down and get rid of the dust and then 2 coats with the new gloss.
Sparkysea said:
Thank you Slagahorse but I will be filling bare wood... I stripped all paint off
Similar process, just prime the bare wood, then fill, then top coat.Or fill then prime. I don't think the 2 part fillers are as fussy as other fillers when it comes to what they are applied to.
Currently doing the same 
Are you taking it off and painting? as may be too cold to paint now, or are you just prepping. 2 part fillers seem to all be similar- car body filler is cheaper I think hence why it crops up, for diy use the Ronseal high performance stuff is good too.. You will probably need some decent caulk as well..
I spent a few hours today making further progress on my old door, So far stripped back to wood, repaired bits, sanded, primed and re-sanded again before more painting. Mines is a replacement door so painting inside and flat which helps. Was much more work than yours as It was the wrong size and with locks on the wrong side!
For filling, I've now ended up just skimming the whole door with filler and then sand down as otherwise you will miss bits you notice later which is annoying, filler sands very easily so not to much work. Also all the panel joins I have chiseled out larger and filled as suspected filling the crack alone wouldn't suffice when the wood expands/contracts in the future.
Are you taking it off and painting? as may be too cold to paint now, or are you just prepping. 2 part fillers seem to all be similar- car body filler is cheaper I think hence why it crops up, for diy use the Ronseal high performance stuff is good too.. You will probably need some decent caulk as well..
I spent a few hours today making further progress on my old door, So far stripped back to wood, repaired bits, sanded, primed and re-sanded again before more painting. Mines is a replacement door so painting inside and flat which helps. Was much more work than yours as It was the wrong size and with locks on the wrong side!
For filling, I've now ended up just skimming the whole door with filler and then sand down as otherwise you will miss bits you notice later which is annoying, filler sands very easily so not to much work. Also all the panel joins I have chiseled out larger and filled as suspected filling the crack alone wouldn't suffice when the wood expands/contracts in the future.
Edited by hyphen on Sunday 18th December 22:29
Sparkysea said:
Wow Hyphen sounds like you know what you're doing! But filler over the whole door? won't that be hard with filler that goes off in seconds?
I won't start mine till spring but I suppose could start the inside
It goes off in minutes rather than seconds.I won't start mine till spring but I suppose could start the inside
An in-progress pic: http://bit.ly/2hPYn62 A bit more to do, but otherwise it is as smooth to the touch as glass
and will paint up well.Slagathore said:
Used this as well - it's blatantly 2-part styrene filler like the Isopon stuff, barely any difference apart from the colour.
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