De painting cedar

[Dented Tin]

Greetings

I have a couple of approximately 60 year old garage doors, and I believe they are made of cedar. Given the age, it may be Australian Cedar. Much of the timber is water damaged and spongy but some is. I believe, salvageable.

They have received several coats of paint over the years and its probable some of the paint has lead.

Can anyone please suggest a safe and effective method to de paint the timber?

Thanks

[weisyboy]

will you be salvaging the timber or the whole door?

if it is the timber you can runn it threw a planner othewise it looks like youll be usning a sander.

[Ian Wells]

I'd use a floor scraper ( the type floor sanders use for clearing out corners) first then plane or sand, that way you'll use less sand paper create less fine dust and or bugger up fewer blades.
oh and please be careful with the lead dust, especially if there are kids round...nasty bloody stuff

[Dented Tin]

Thanks a lot Gents - my intention would be to dismantle the old doors and salvage some of the better pieces, with intention of making a cabinet etc. They are past reusing as doors and I had replicas made recently in Western Red Cedar (dont ask what that cost!)

Yes, the potential for lead dust is a worry. I bought one of those kits where you just apply a gizmo and depending on the colour it turns, you know if lead paint is present. So I'll give it a go and might reassess my plans.

Regards.

[ubeaut]

Strip it with paint stripper, hell of a lot safer than sanding and will save more timber than planing or putting it through a thinnesser.

At 60 years old doubt it would be Australian Cedar but one never knows. If it were 160 years old and it would be more likely.

Cheers - Neil :U

[BobL]

Strip it with paint stripper, hell of a lot safer than sanding and will save more timber than planing or putting it through a thinnesser.

At 60 years old doubt it would be Australian Cedar but one never knows. If it were 160 years old and it would be more likely.

Cheers - Neil :U

Agree - definitely avoid the sanding.

The timber in this picture frame was Western Red Cedar (WRC) with one undercoat and 3 coats of top coat. as you probably know WRC is a very soft porous wood so the paint had penetrated a long way & vigorous scraping is not on. It took me ages to get the paint out. I used paint stripper and a scraper to get the bulk of The paint off. Then I was left with a finely cracked surface still containing a lot of paint so I the used multiple (~10) coats of paint stripper and a toothbrush with the bristles trimmed to about 1/3rd their original length and a pointed scraper to get stuff out of the cracks. This left a clean surface with a lot of scratches so then I sanded it. It's a photo of my brothers cottage in Boulder CO which is itself clad in WRC.

http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/attachment.php?attachmentid=20051&d=1141043046

[astrid]

Spend a few bucks and send them to a good dipper.
Its safer and more cost effective.
make sure they use metholine chloride not caustic.

just a point, if there only 60 yo their unlikely to be australian cedar (toonis australis) as this was pretty well wiped out early last centuary.
quantities to make doors would have cost a packet

Astrid

[falcon]

if not cedar, they maybe silky oak.

i salavaged an old garage tiltadoor some years ago and was surprised to find it was silky oak. Got some nice wide and thing peices out of it for a coffee table

[astrid]

Spend a few bucks and send them to a good dipper.
Its safer and more cost effective.
make sure they use metholine chloride not caustic.

just a point, if there only 60 yo their unlikely to be australian cedar (toonis australis) as this was pretty well wiped out early last centuary.
quantities to make doors would have cost a packet

Astrid

sorry Neil, missed post 5:D

Astrid