re-juvinating hand carved doors

[Tricky Dicky]

<table id="post454217" class="tborder" align="center" border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td class="alt1" id="td_post_454217" style="border-right: 1px solid rgb(102, 51, 51);">We are fortunate enough to have a beautiful house in geelong which was once owned by a family which had a business imported doors from the Phillipines among other timber products.

There is some beautiful timber in the house but all that another time.

All the doors in the house are of solid wood construction and I have 26 on wardrobes alone, but sadly they are all warping and are going to need replacing. they were not sealed on the top and bottom. Bugger

But of major concern are the hand carved double doors at the front of the house (facing west).
The problem is that only the bottom half of the doors get the sun so they get hot at the bottom and not at the top. One door is slightly warped at one bottom corner. An both doors have developed hairline cracking (not sure what else to call it) over the whole outside face - worse at the bottom. The inside still looks fantastic as is as good as new.

The doors as best I can see are assembled with glue and have wooden dowels through the M&T at each corner.

So, over the last 20 years they have been varnished with many coats of Estapol or similar. I must this year remove all this goo and retreat them and here-in lies the question.

How do I deal with this, If I ask them at the paint shop the answer is generally lot and lots of Estapol up to 5 coats.

To remove the old stuff I will need a stripper as it would be impossible to sand in the carved areas. I believe the stripper will further dry out the doors but I dont see any other answer.

I guess the real question is what do I do to get oil back in the doors and protect them from the west sun. It is highly unlikely that they would ever get wet as they are in a verandah area set back about 2 meters.

I would appreciate any input,
Thanks
Richard

PS by the way this is a copy from the finishing forum i did not manage any replies.

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[Geelong demo]

i have seen a form of acid bathing used in some other salvage yards, not quite shure what this would do to the wood. they come up very, very clean using this method though