Removing beading from interior doors

[gibbon]

Hi there,
I live in a 1960's flat which had flat painted doors but a previous resident added beading to all the doors to try to make them look like Victorian panelled doors -- so each door has 4 beaded rectangles of beading strips which were glued and pinned on and then doors painted.
There are 4 doors in all with beading on both sides. I would like to remove the beading, fill, sand and paint to restore the doors to their original flat state.
A pro-decorator told me it's doable but i'm still worried it could be hard to really get the doors looking flat again.
Any thoughts or experience from anyone before embarking on this would be much appreciated.
Many thanks in advance.

[ayjay]

Brute force and ignorance is about the only way to remove them.

Run a sharp Stanley knife around them first to help minimise the paint from flaking adjacent to the beading, then use a large old chisel (bevel to the door) and just beat it under the beading.

Depending on how well they are glued and what surface they are glued to, it's quite likely that some of that surface will come away with the glue, but that can be filled.

[Job and Knock]

As much a joinery question as a decorating one.....

.....but to get them off you'll need a sharp, wide chisel (say 1-1/2in), a hammer and a Stanley (utility) knife. First knife the joints between the beads and the door surface pointing the blade so that it cuts into the beading NOT the door. That will make it easier to pry the beading off). Turn the chisel so that the bevel is resting on the surface of the door at about the mid point of the bead and hit it with the hammer. Move along and repeat. The beading should start to come away.

Once the beading is off pull out any remaining pins using a pair of carpenters end nippers. Any short protrusions can be punched under using a hammer and nail set (nail punch). There will probably be various holes and defects along the tracks where the beads were. These should be filled with a 2-pack filler (car body filler works well) - this will dry hard and doesn't sink, shrink or crack BUT it can only really be machine sanded unless you have lots and lots of time for hand sanding.

Once you've done that the door can be sanded back and painted as normal

Edit: Which is more or less what Ajay said....... Beaten to the punch once more!

[OchAye]

OK, I will give the same instructions but different tools. Use the stanley or OLFA or other knife but then use a scraper or better a decorator's multi-tool to push them under the beading. You need something thin wide and strong to get under the beading but the scrapers will not take much/any hammering. Once you make a start on a rectangle the rest should come off easy enough.

Then sand, fill, sand again and good luck.


Ooops Gibbon.

[dewaltdisney]

My thoughts are that this will work better if the bead was stuck on paint. If it was stuck on a typical natural wood finish 60's style Sapele veneered doors and then painted it could be a bit disastrous as the glue will bond very well to the veneer and could rip off sections as you remove the beading. This may lead to at the very least a lot of work making good. May I suggest that you experiment on some bead at the back of a door that is not so obvious and see how you go using the techniques above.

DWD

[Tom d'Angler]

My thoughts are: it would be better to strip all the paint off the whole door after removing the beading as it wouldn't take much longer, and be less hassle, than trying to sand the rest of the door level.

[gibbon]

Many thanks for all the advice.
I fear that as dewaltdisney cautions, the beading may have been stuck on the veneer door in it's original state rather than on a painted surface.
Apart from the front door the doors are pretty light weight and imagine never great quality - perhaps Tom d'Angler has a point about stripping paint first. Must proceed cautiously....
Thanks again everyone for insights.

[OchAye]

Don't strip the paint first!!! If you remove the beading successfully you can strip the paint afterwards or you will still be stuck on removing paint and beading when you get to it. Also, those doors are likely to have been varnished, gloss was the in-thing, as opposed to be bare veneer. Whatever happens, you have to be prepared for the worse, that is after you remove or attempt to remove the beading the doors may have had it. Have a plan for what next.

BTW. I repaired two doors that our then dog was determined to go through. You would not know they had been repaired but there again some times (more often than not) I become obsessive.

[Tom d'Angler]

As OchAye says, try to get the beading off first. My suggestion was to strip the doors after you remove the beading as you will only know how much work you need to do after it comes off.

[gibbon]

Och Aye, Tom D -- Yes understood! Many thanks.

[dewaltdisney]

I recall in the 60's a lot of Sapele doors were left natural with no finish by the builders on the explosion of new builds at the time. They used to get grubby marks around the handles from hand contact. Lots of home owners would varnish the doors themselves and this would darken them as the polyurethane yellowed after a time losing the light clean look. I raised this point as it is a distinct possibility that the beading has been glued direct onto unfinished veneer which will splinter and break out if levered off as suggested. A test is best

DWD

[OchAye]

This is where an angle grinder comes handy

My doors were coated with something or other I think (beaded in a single frame not pretend panels and painted now). Two other houses in the street that I have visited the doors were gloss shiny, maybe a Scottish thing. The houses are very early 60s. As you say, pick a non-visible side of a door to experiment is wise. Knowing what is the cost of replacement doors if the end result is ugly is necessary too.

[Job and Knock]

A test is best

A test is always best. With antique doors (e.g Victorian) for example, there can be so many coats that it is next to impossible to remove beading without breaking it. This may be repairable (with Mitre Mate) or it may be a case of replace the lot. Varnish and wood stain are the worst culprits for "glueing" beads in place - a joiner will always pin beads, NEVER glue them, but even there factory-made windows since the 1980s can feature partially "worked" beads where the bead and glazing bar on one side are machined as a single piece and the removeable (pinned) bead on the other side is produced using a technique called bead recovery. Attempting to attack the worked side of the glazing bars in those instances would get you nowhere