Stripping paint from interior door

[WoodworkerTom]

I moved in to a larger house 2 years ago.  All of the interior doors are 6 panel painted doors.  They are really heavy, like 85Lbs.  I assume they are MDF but am not certain.  I just remodeled one of the bathrooms and the door has so much paint on it(poorly done I might add) that it looks terrible.

I could certainly sand the flat parts but there is beading details around the 6 panels and I don't want to sand that away if I use a foam block.

Can you use a paint stripper on an MDF door or will it trash it if I tried?  I don't want to buy one of the foam core solid core doors from a big box, they don't have the same weight and it is nice to close the doors that we have.

[joe1086]

Heat gun?

[JGrout]

Paint stripper is fine as long as it is not water based. 

I would cover the stripper with plastic to keep it working on the paint and not evaporating then use putty knives to scrape the large flat areas and coarse sawdust ( planer shaving work great ) for the detail parts. 

If you really want to know if they are mdf or not drill a hole in the head or the bottom and inspect the shavings 

it will be obvious if it is MDF or wood or particle board

Joe

[geek2me]

If you really want to know if they are mdf or not drill a hole in the head or the bottom and inspect the shavings 

Or take off the door knob and look in the hole.

[tomsteve]

Or take off the door knob and look in the hole.

or sure- keep it simple why don't ya!

[MsNomer]

Except there may be a piece there not representative of the rest of the door.

[brianwelch]

even MDF (masonite?) raised panel doors have an interior wood frame around the exterior and at the lockset. They usually have less "detail" at the coping/joints. You should be able to look at the top of the door...if the width of the vertical stiles is not consistent with what is visible at the top of the door, then most likely not a wood door. Also, many times the "skin" of the door is visible at the top as well...
Wood doors often move between the raised panels and the frame...this should be easy to spot.
No idea how paint comes off of masonite/mdf...I would probably scrape/sand and recoat, rather than strip

[Stwood_]

Or take off the door knob and look in the hole.

+1



Not sure what wood details you have there, but maybe a card scraper would help you out some.

[WoodworkerTom]

I ended up using a MEK stripper on the door. The base seemed to be like Masonite over MDF. Door had about 6 coats of paint, one being burgundy with a bronze dry brush glaze. The MEK did not affect the door.

Thanks for the advice.