I have to sand a panelled front door to remove crazed and damaged
varnish and get a clean start for new varnish, any particular type of
power sander? Or any other better method?
--
Mike

On Tue, 11 May 2010 14:11:39 +0100, Allthumbs
wrote:

I have to sand

From reading
"http://www.diy-power-tools.co.uk/power_sanders.htm"
it seems a small random orbital is the best thing?
--
Mike

On Tue, 11 May 2010 14:21:02 +0100, Allthumbs
wrote:

random orbital

sorry to keep replying to myself (does it make you go blind?)

This Hitachi looks like it might be pretty good?
"http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?action=detail&fh_secondid=10477509&ecamp=t rf-005&CAWELAID=348435658"
--
Mike

On 11 May, 14:11, Allthumbs wrote:
I have to sand a panelled front door to remove crazed and damaged
varnish and get a clean start for new varnish, any particular type of
power sander?

Random orbitals beat everything else, but get a decent one. I like my
Makita (80 quid ish), the Bosch PEX 400 is nearly as good, but isn't
as cheap as it used to be (a rare Green Bosch that's a better deal
than the Blue).

You'll also need something for internal corners. I've a 20 quid Ryobi
1/4 sheet that's underpowered for big jobs, but finishes off corners
usefully. "Mouse" and delta sanders are pitiful. You might also find
a curved cabinet scraper, or even bits of broken window glass (wrap in
gaffer tape!) to be useful for mouldings.

Good abrasives make a big difference too, especially their resistance
to clogging when going through thick paint. At the moment I'm using
some mesh stuff from Tilgear that works nicely on a pad with suction
applied to it. It can be worth attaching a vacuum cleaner just to get
better airflow, and thus cooler sanding (less hot, gummy clogging)

"Allthumbs" wrote in message
...
I have to sand a panelled front door to remove crazed and damaged
varnish and get a clean start for new varnish, any particular type of
power sander? Or any other better method?
--
Mike

No sander!

Very noisy; very slow; ruins the wood; can't get into the corners and
mouldings, so ends up spoiling the profiles.

As in an earlier thread, the tool you would find quickest and easiest is the
Scarsden scraper. However, a web search, produces the astonishing fact that
only me and a yacht maintaining person ever seem to have heard of them, and
I can find nowhere that admits to selling them! A terrible fate to befall
what has been one of the top tools in my kit for many years! It is always
in my pocket when I am painting and decorating.

Anyhow, there are other scrapers - mostly designed for heavy duty, and not
looking quite as convenient and 'palm friendly' as the Scarsden. Screwfix
has some; here is another selection:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_...fix=Bahco+scra

Actually you can use almost any bit of fairly hard metal as a scraper: sawn
off dinner knives, or old chisels or plane blades, are particularly good for
the fiddly bits. You just have to put a burr on one side of the edge with a
file, and scrape away. Just remember to go *down* the grain of the wood or
it will look like the cat brushed the wrong way. Once you get the hang of
it, you will rarely want to ponce about with sanders except on surfaces that
are mostly filler: and even then you will be p'd off by all the scratch
marks across the grain. All you need abrasive papers for is a final down
the grain with fine grade by hand, and then again after the first coat, to
pick up any raised fibres.

Use diamond hard varnish if you want to make a really good job. A lot of
varnish stays tacky and picks up the dirt and yet clogs up anything you do
try to sand it with. Nasty stuff.

S

Allthumbs wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 14:11:39 +0100, Allthumbs
wrote:

I have to sand

From reading
"http://www.diy-power-tools.co.uk/power_sanders.htm"
it seems a small random orbital is the best thing?

Random orbit sanders are the mutts nuts. Only thing they can't do is
corners. You can buy detail sanders that have triangular pads - or
something like the Bosch PMF180 multi tool, which sands better than any
detail sander I've ever used & is also a wonderful multi purpose tool.


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

On 11/05/2010 17:41, spamlet wrote:
wrote in message
...
I have to sand a panelled front door to remove crazed and damaged
varnish and get a clean start for new varnish, any particular type of
power sander? Or any other better method?
--
Mike

No sander!

Very noisy; very slow; ruins the wood; can't get into the corners and
mouldings, so ends up spoiling the profiles.

As in an earlier thread, the tool you would find quickest and easiest is the
Scarsden scraper. However, a web search, produces the astonishing fact that
only me and a yacht maintaining person ever seem to have heard of them, and
I can find nowhere that admits to selling them! A terrible fate to befall
what has been one of the top tools in my kit for many years! It is always
in my pocket when I am painting and decorating.

Anyhow, there are other scrapers - mostly designed for heavy duty, and not
looking quite as convenient and 'palm friendly' as the Scarsden. Screwfix
has some; here is another selection:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_...fix=Bahco+scra

Actually you can use almost any bit of fairly hard metal as a scraper: sawn
off dinner knives, or old chisels or plane blades, are particularly good for
the fiddly bits. You just have to put a burr on one side of the edge with a
file, and scrape away. Just remember to go *down* the grain of the wood or
it will look like the cat brushed the wrong way. Once you get the hang of
it, you will rarely want to ponce about with sanders except on surfaces that
are mostly filler: and even then you will be p'd off by all the scratch
marks across the grain. All you need abrasive papers for is a final down
the grain with fine grade by hand, and then again after the first coat, to
pick up any raised fibres.

Use diamond hard varnish if you want to make a really good job. A lot of
varnish stays tacky and picks up the dirt and yet clogs up anything you do
try to sand it with. Nasty stuff.

S



Skarsen scraper gives a few hits on google
John Gifford

On Tue, 11 May 2010 17:41:50 +0100, "spamlet"
wrote:

However, a web search, produces the astonishing fact that
only me and a yacht maintaining person ever seem to have heard of them, and
I can find nowhere that admits to selling them! A terrible fate to befall
what has been one of the top tools in my kit for many years! It is always
in my pocket when I am painting and decorating.

Skarsten they were spelled, and seem to gone out of business.

A "Faithfull Wood Scraper" is a close replacement, google tells me.

Amazon shows it, but it is "currently unavailable"...


Thomas Prufer

"John Gifford" wrote in message
...
On 11/05/2010 17:41, spamlet wrote:
wrote in message
...
I have to sand a panelled front door to remove crazed and damaged
varnish and get a clean start for new varnish, any particular type of
power sander? Or any other better method?
--
Mike

No sander!

Very noisy; very slow; ruins the wood; can't get into the corners and
mouldings, so ends up spoiling the profiles.

As in an earlier thread, the tool you would find quickest and easiest is
the
Scarsden scraper. However, a web search, produces the astonishing fact
that
only me and a yacht maintaining person ever seem to have heard of them,
and
I can find nowhere that admits to selling them! A terrible fate to
befall
what has been one of the top tools in my kit for many years! It is
always
in my pocket when I am painting and decorating.

Anyhow, there are other scrapers - mostly designed for heavy duty, and
not
looking quite as convenient and 'palm friendly' as the Scarsden.
Screwfix
has some; here is another selection:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_...fix=Bahco+scra

Actually you can use almost any bit of fairly hard metal as a scraper:
sawn
off dinner knives, or old chisels or plane blades, are particularly good
for
the fiddly bits. You just have to put a burr on one side of the edge
with a
file, and scrape away. Just remember to go *down* the grain of the wood
or
it will look like the cat brushed the wrong way. Once you get the hang
of
it, you will rarely want to ponce about with sanders except on surfaces
that
are mostly filler: and even then you will be p'd off by all the scratch
marks across the grain. All you need abrasive papers for is a final down
the grain with fine grade by hand, and then again after the first coat,
to
pick up any raised fibres.

Use diamond hard varnish if you want to make a really good job. A lot of
varnish stays tacky and picks up the dirt and yet clogs up anything you
do
try to sand it with. Nasty stuff.

S



Skarsen scraper gives a few hits on google
John Gifford

Ah that'll be my child brain interpreting my dad's name for it, and never
having had to write it down before!
And from repeating you googling I'm glad to see that others appreciate the
gizmo too!

Cheers,
S

"Thomas Prufer" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 11 May 2010 17:41:50 +0100, "spamlet"

wrote:

However, a web search, produces the astonishing fact that
only me and a yacht maintaining person ever seem to have heard of them,
and
I can find nowhere that admits to selling them! A terrible fate to befall
what has been one of the top tools in my kit for many years! It is always
in my pocket when I am painting and decorating.

Skarsten they were spelled, and seem to gone out of business.

A "Faithfull Wood Scraper" is a close replacement, google tells me.

Amazon shows it, but it is "currently unavailable"...


Thomas Prufer

It's not just me with the spelling then...

:-)

S

On Tue, 11 May 2010 14:11:39 +0100, Allthumbs
wrote:

Or any other better method?

thanks for all the advice, I now realize I have a scraper that I
inherited, didn't really know what it was! I now also have a random
orbit sander, ohhhh, I love a new tool.
--
Mike

On 12 May, 11:39, Allthumbs wrote:

thanks for all the advice, I now realize I have a *scraper that I
inherited, didn't really know what it was!

Scrapers are great. Read the Lee Valley or Axminster sites to see
what's out there.

They come on three sorts:

* Card scrapers for shifting old finishes.

* Card scrapers for fine finishing of bare wood.

* Hook scrapers.

Hook scrapers are the old Skarsten sort. They're still around, from
different makers. Some are tungsten carbide, often with replacable
blades. These have a factory-shaped edge and often a big plastic or
wooden handle. They leave a poor finsh (relatively), but they're rigid
enough to put some real force behind them. Good for stroppy finishes,
like bitumen-based floorings or thick old varnish.

Card scrapers are thin sheets of hard steel. They can be made rapidly
(in a factory) by guillotining stainless steel, so offcuts from
industrial kitchen fitters are often usable as such. Not expensive to
buy though. Bought ones are also available with curves and narrow
radii, useful for mouldings.

A card scraper's enemy is chatter, as they vibrate back and forth
owing to being only thin steel. Using steel that's thick enough, has
the right temper, or simply bowing them to a shallow arch can help.
You may also need to wear gloves, because of the force needed and heat
generated.

Card scrapers need to be sharp, but this isn't widely understood and
there are two ways of doing it.

The simplest way is to form a very sharp square (or nearly square)
edge. This edge is good for stripping off old finishes, where chip
formation isn't an issue. Guillotining makes this edge anyway,
otherwise you need a find file and then a stone. I use a file holder
originally sold for sharpening skis. Another way is to use edges of
freshly broken glass as a scraper, which come sharp from the smashed
pane.

For fine finishing of wood, you need to roll a burr onto the edge of
the edge, so that it's ultra-sharp, Read Leonard Lee's Sharpening
book, or a bunch of US woodworking webbage. This starts with a sharp
square-edged scraper and also a burnisher - a hard, smooth steel rod.
Burnishers are cheap to buy, and they come with handles that protect
your hand. Yes, you can use an old engine valve (great if you put it
into a handle) or a screwdriver shaft, or even a round file shank.
However slipping with these ersatz tools will damage either you or the
scraper, so don't do it. You can even buy the Veritas angle-
adjustable burnisher. For the technique of using it, web search for
something with pictures.

On Tue, 11 May 2010 21:30:46 +0200, Thomas Prufer
wrote:

On Tue, 11 May 2010 17:41:50 +0100, "spamlet"
wrote:

However, a web search, produces the astonishing fact that
only me and a yacht maintaining person ever seem to have heard of them, and
I can find nowhere that admits to selling them! A terrible fate to befall
what has been one of the top tools in my kit for many years! It is always
in my pocket when I am painting and decorating.

Skarsten they were spelled, and seem to gone out of business.

A "Faithfull Wood Scraper" is a close replacement, google tells me.

Amazon shows it, but it is "currently unavailable"...


Thomas Prufer

The Faithfull version appears to be identical to the Skarsten. I
searched for a long time to find replacement blades for my Skarsten
until a couple of weeks back, when I stumbled across a local grotty
little tool shop which had the Faithfull blades in stock. Fit
perfectly.

On Wed, 12 May 2010 04:52:00 -0700 (PDT), Andy Dingley
wrote:

For the technique of using it, web search for
something with pictures.

will do.
--
Mike

"Old Git" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 11 May 2010 21:30:46 +0200, Thomas Prufer
wrote:

On Tue, 11 May 2010 17:41:50 +0100, "spamlet"

wrote:

However, a web search, produces the astonishing fact that
only me and a yacht maintaining person ever seem to have heard of them,
and
I can find nowhere that admits to selling them! A terrible fate to
befall
what has been one of the top tools in my kit for many years! It is
always
in my pocket when I am painting and decorating.

Skarsten they were spelled, and seem to gone out of business.

A "Faithfull Wood Scraper" is a close replacement, google tells me.

Amazon shows it, but it is "currently unavailable"...


Thomas Prufer

The Faithfull version appears to be identical to the Skarsten. I
searched for a long time to find replacement blades for my Skarsten
until a couple of weeks back, when I stumbled across a local grotty
little tool shop which had the Faithfull blades in stock. Fit
perfectly.

You can keep putting an edge back on the blades (especially frequently on
the ends when you are profiling'), and make each blade last for years,
simply with a couple of strokes with a file you keep in your back pocket as
you go. Only when the blades keep popping out of the groove they fit in do
you need to think about replacement (and even then, a few narrowing taps
with a hammer can often sort that out for a while longer too!). It's one of
those products that are so good you kind of feel you owe it to them to buy
some new blades occasionally just to keep them happy. (Rather like those
original one blade Bic yellow razors: I think I've still got half my
original pack of ten somewhere!)

Actually I forgot to mention a couple of other quick ways with varnish.
Depending on the surface profile, you can often simply plane it off and get
a lovely smooth finish with a hand plane or spokeshave. I did all my front
bay window like that last year (outside). The Skarsen was only really
necessary on the bead and in the corners, and on the rather flexy door
panels themselves.

S

On May 11, 2:11*pm, Allthumbs wrote:
I have to sand a panelled front door to remove crazed and damaged
varnish and get a clean start for new varnish, any particular type of
power sander? Or any other better method?

Block of wood.
Mirka sandpaper.
Tap occasionally.

Do not get too carried away or there will be no wood, it is
exceptionally fast.
Mirka 80 to get the bulk off, then 3M stuff 240 to get perfectly
smooth.

You might want to consider a sikkens woodstain over varnish, longer
life.

"js.b1" wrote in message
...
On May 11, 2:11 pm, Allthumbs wrote:
I have to sand a panelled front door to remove crazed and damaged
varnish and get a clean start for new varnish, any particular type of
power sander? Or any other better method?

Block of wood.
Mirka sandpaper.
Tap occasionally.

Do not get too carried away or there will be no wood, it is
exceptionally fast.
Mirka 80 to get the bulk off, then 3M stuff 240 to get perfectly
smooth.

You might want to consider a sikkens woodstain over varnish, longer
life.

You must have a very groovy door; and very strong arms, or very thin
varnish.

S