Before burning off the paint with a hot air gun, I removed all the door furniture, laid heavy duty paper under the door inside and out, and laid plastic sheeting on the floor on the other side of the door. I regularly vacuumed up any dust and dirt.

It took about 4 hours to get it down to the bare wood, and an hour to clean off the bits. The bare wood was primed with Dulux Weathershield Preservative Primer, a runny liquid with a green tinge. I suspect it is tinted green for marketing purposes only!

Once primed, the door was undercoated with oil-based Trade Weathershield. If you want a good base from which to achieve the shiniest door in the village, the undercoat has to be oil-based, so I made sure it was TRADE Weathershield, as opposed to Dulux Weathershield from the DIY superstores, which was water-based!

When undercoated, the door is ready to be filled. I skimmed all the panels, stiles and rails with Polycell trade filler and brushed watered down filler on all the mouldings. It takes a couple of hours for it to dry hard. After a gentle rub down with light grade sandpaper, the dust was removed with the vacuum, every square inch was wiped over with a tack rag, and it was undercoated.

(For an even stronger shinier base, I would substitute conventional filler with oil-based Swedish Putty which is available in Europe as Toupret Gras a Lacquer, or Beissier Gras a Laquer. It goes on super thin, and dries off quickly ready for more skim if necessary. Leave overnight and sand smooth with wet n dry abrasive used wet. It can be applied either over the primer or the undercoat with no perceivable difference in final result.)

This process of filling and sanding and cleaning took about 2 hours. It takes no more than 30 minutes to paint one coat on the door by brush. With an airless it takes seconds per coat once masked up, likewise, HVLP sprayers are mighty quick too. (It depends on the desired end result, which application approach you take.)

The door was undercoated and filled 3 times in all, before being ready for glossing.

The last job before applying the first coat of gloss is to “gun up” the joints down the side of the mouldings. When the flexible acrylic has dried hard, the door is glossed. I did this early in the morning, so the paint had a good 12 hours to dry. The following day I lightly sanded the door with wet ‘n dry, used wet, cleaned it off with a tack rag, and put on the second coat.