Page 219 - 2018 National Home Improvement

2018 National Home Improvement Estimator, All Rights Reserved Page 177

Antiquing is time-consuming. Any antiqued surface requires three coats: a base coat, the antique
wood-grain coat, and a finish coat of varnish. Each coat has to dry overnight before the next coat is
applied. Figure about three hours to antique an entry door, not including any other repairs.

Antique finishes are fragile and not recommended for high traffic surfaces. But if the door is too
damaged for varnish and painting isn’t an option, antiquing will replicate the look and feel of wood grain.

Repairing Holes
Holes are common in older doors. They range from small nail holes, such as used to hang holiday
decorations, to abandoned bore holes as big as your fist. Holes of up to about 1/2" can be filled with
wood putty. From a foot or two away, the repair won’t be noticeable. Repairing larger holes requires a
different strategy.

Don’t consider a door ruined just because an amateur butchered it trying to install a security lock – or a
thief smashed it trying to defeat the same lock. Large holes are fairly easy to fix if you know how. Even
a ragged hole the size of a softball can be fixed.

Rather than replace the door, buy a gallon of auto body filler, such as Bondo. It’s strong, weatherproof,
workable, paintable, and cheap. A gallon goes a long way. Auto body filler is a gooey, clay-like material.
The hardener comes in a separate tube. Mix body filler and hardener on a flat surface such as a piece of
scrap wood or heavy cardboard. Do the mixing with a putty knife. Be careful not to get Bondo on your
skin, as it burns. And keep anything valuable that’s nearby well protected, as it’s almost impossible to
remove once it’s hardened. The more hardener you add to the mix, the faster it hardens. Add too much
hardener and it sets in seconds.

Body filler is semi-liquid and will ooze and run when applied to a vertical surface. So lay the door down
flat across two sawhorses. If the hole you’re repairing goes completely through the door, form the
underside of the patch with a piece of cardboard. The form material will bond to the door, so if you use
wood for a form, you'll end up having to chisel it off. Cardboard will easily peel off the door. Then you can
just sand away the residue.

Fill the hole completely with the first layer of body filler. If you have hills and valleys, let the filler harden,
then fill in the valleys. In auto body work, three layers are considered the minimum. When repairing
doors, two coats will usually do the job.

Use a Surform plane to smooth out hardened body filler. A Surform plane has hundreds of little cutting
teeth. Each tooth trims away a little material. You can work at any angle and not have to worry about
cutting too deep. The Surform cuts away hills and blobs in seconds, leaving a flat, although rough,
surface. When you’re done planing, the surface will look like someone clawed the material with
fingernails. Use a power sander with coarse sandpaper to smooth out the marks left by the Surform. The
result will be a smooth, strong, solid surface.