I hung all the doors (pine) in my home. While staining and sealing
them is
a pain in the ass while their done it can be done.

In my case I used a oil based stain and to seal it I used
Minwax Polycrilic (water based)

The oil stain smelled to high heaven and probably took a few
years off my life. (used a rag to wipe it on (USE GLOVES!)

After a few days I used the polycrilic to seal it up. (good brush)
I really do love that stuff! It dries in 2 hours, dont smell
that bad at all and cleanup is with soap and water.
In addition to that it wont turn yellow like polyurathane
over the years. While I wouldnt recommend it on my oak floors
it looks GREAT on my doors! It was definitly a pleasure to work with.
(I did the polycrilic twice on each door. First coat, light sand, then
second coat 2 hours later, look and admire)


Tom

Shawn wrote:
I just spent the most frustrating 2 hours ever trying to put
fast-drying
Minwax polyurethane on an interior bedroom door. I'm obviously not
doing
something right and I need advice from someone who's done this lots,
instead
of never, like me.

Here's the situation. I have an unfinished second floor in my home.
We are
finally getting around to finishing it, and a month or so ago we
bought 4
Masonite pre-hung raised panel wooden doors from Home Depot to put on
the 2
bedrooms, the bathroom, and the closet upstairs. My plan was to
stain them
and then poly them first before attempting to hang them.

I went away for a week in December for work, and when I got home, all
the
doors were up. My wife thought she'd surprise me and hired someone
to put
them in, since I had been walking around for a couple weeks saying I
wasn't
sure I'd be able to hang these doors properly myself, not having done
that
sort of thing before.

Anyways, now the doors are installed, but not stained or poly'd. So,
I
stained them a couple weeks ago. That went well. But this morning I

started to poly one, and it took me 2 HOURS to do the frame and only
one
side of the door. It was the biggest mess you've ever seen.

I used a 3-inch foam brush (from Home Depot), as it says on the
Minwax can
you can use. I had poly dripping off the brush onto the floor,
running down
my hand and arms, bits of foam coming off getting stuck in the poly
on the
door .... then, just went I thought I'd gotten a good coat on a
certain
section, I'd catch it from another angle in the light and see a large
area
that didn't have any poly at all on it. The foam brush just didn't
seem to
be spreading the poly well and covering the door properly. Am I
doing
something wrong ? The Minwax instructions says a foam brush can be
used but
it's obviously not doing it well.

I'd like to hear from contractors, carpenters etc out there how they
do this
without having it become a fiasco and taking 4 weeks to do 4 doors.
I
stopped after the one side. How am I going to 2 sides on 4 doors, 3
times
(coats) over !! It'll take me a year !

Should I spray it ? Should I use a bristle brush ? I thought the
foam
would work out better because I could just toss it when I was done
and grab
a new one for the next coat. Can't do that with a bristle brush -
I'll have
to clean it after each time, and then the next time, the coat won't
be as
smooth because the bristle's always stiffen up after cleaning in
paint
thinner.

I think I'm going to pull the hinge pins and take the doors down so I
can
poly them flat, which should get around the mess caused by the poly
running
on the doors, but that won't help with the pre-hung frames.

What I really need to know is the proper technique for applying poly
and the
proper tools to use.

Thanks for listening to my rant and hopefully someone out there has
some
advice for me.

Shawn