Repairing Doors at Regency Plaza

Some Bad, Bad Doors

We recently did some touch-up work at Regency Plaza in Dallas on 18 rest room doors. This brief pictorial article shows the condition of the doors before and after, and includes step-by-step photos of the repairs.

Years of wear have worn away the finish around the handplate, that much is obvious. What may not be immediately apparent is that the finish has badly deteriorated all across the door face due to body oils reacting with the laquer to deteriorate the finish. Note the dark color extending from the handplate across the face of the door. The next photo reveals the true extent of this damage, which was revealed after the door was cleaned.

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Extreme Damage

The doors were first cleaned with mild cleaners overall, then scrubbed with 4/0 steel wool and cleaners around the handplate. This removed the broken-down gummy finish and revealed the true extent of the damage.

The above photo shows one of the doors after the cleaning procedure, with the handplate removed, and a few burn-ins begun.

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Bag of Tricks

We use a fairly wide range of touch-up procedures in performing this type of work. Our supplies are carried around in touch-up kits. In this photo, Jorge Cuebas is dipping into his bag of tricks in preparation of doing a marathon touch-up on the door. His right hand is near the burn-in sticks we use for fills. His left is lifting out a bottle of padding lacquer. The padding procedure is used extensively in our work, and will be the preferred means of restoring color to these doors.

The procedure will involve making all necessary burn-in repairs, followed by a quick padding of the bare area, a very light topcoat of aerosol finish, quick graining with a "grease pencil," a final mist of topcoat, and application of a cream polish. The entire process takes about an hour per door.

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Burn-in Fills

Here, Jorge is using the burn-in technique to make fills in the dents and dings on the lower portion of the door.

The burn-in procedure goes like this: You melt the matching-color repair stick into the damaged areas, then rub over the repair and surrounding area with a lubricant in order to prevent the material from sticking elsewhere, while you drag the hot blade of the burn-in knife across the repair in order to remove the excess and level off the repair.

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Padding the Color

On large areas, Jorge likes to put the pigments directly on his pad, which is saturated beforehand with the padding lacquer. This enables him to replace the color and finish very quickly. The next five photos show his rapid padding progress.

Jorge used two color applications for this which he custom mixed with the appropriate pigments. The padding is now done, and the next step will be to add the illusion of grain.

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Locking it In

Next step is to simulate some grain, so first we'll mist a little semi-gloss lacquer over the padding in preparation.

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Adding Grain

Beginning on one side of the repair area, Jorge applies color from a graining pencil in long, brisk strokes.

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Final Touches

After graining, the door has been topcoated with semi-gloss again, the handplate re-installed, and the door polished with an industrial cream polish. Now, Jorge adds some finesse in graining detail with a fine-tipped graining pen. The pen contains a dye stain similar to furniture touch-up markers.

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Project Complete

Though not perfect, the difference in appearance is enormous! This process was repeated 18 times throughout the building. We hadn't realized the full extent of damage to these doors until we began aggressively cleaning them; our customer got a real bargain. The excessive wear was due in part to the fact that a regular nitrocellulose laquer was used as the original finish on these doors. It couldn't hold up long to the constant friction and body oils at the point of contact near the handplate. Likewise, padding laquers are not expected to last long over such extensive damages. The customer has been advised that the repairs should be topcoated soon with a more durable finish. If the work is approved, we'll mask, sand and shoot the doors with two coats of a more durable film in the near future

Although pulling the doors down to strip and refinish them would be the best procedure for doors with this extent of damage, that was not an option for our customer at this time. In our commercial endeavors, we always strive to arrive at solutions which meet the customer's need at all levels.

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