How to get a very high quality finish on very old woodwork many times repainted?

[mikeey84]

My comment was about skirting architrave etc. If you have nice original floors, they are worth the effort. I wouldn't spend a huge amount of time on skirting unless it was difficult to source a modern match, or an expensive size.

As mentioned, it's not just the time, there is a huge safety risk with sanding old wood.

 

[teaboyjim]

My comment was about skirting architrave etc. If you have nice original floors, they are worth the effort. I wouldn't spend a huge amount of time on skirting unless it was difficult to source a modern match, or an expensive size. As mentioned, it's not just the time, there is a huge safety risk with sanding old wood.

I hadn't thought too much about the safety risk of sanding the old wood with respect to lead in old paint.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

What's your view about "replacing woodwork" to get that new finished look? The quality of the boards and size of them is hard to beat though but I fear it will take many more hours than just replacing with pre-painted MDF

The timber quality isn't really much of an issue when you are talking about painted work. As to size, in my experience bigger skirtings, over 12in/300mm were often made up from two parts carried on timber grounds certainly in late Victorian and Edwardian times. This was partly to reduce cost, partly to aleviatevthe problems of cupping you get with extremely wide boards used as skirting (floors are different because floorboards are well nailed down, or should be, and get weighted down by furniture, carpets, walls, etc)

Whilst not original I probably have less qualms than you about using MDF in a listed building for specific tasks. I have replaced skirtings in the past with modern 4- and 5-part skirtings where the flat, vertical portions of the replacement skirtings were MDF, but the top mouldings were machined hardwood (poplar). These skirtings were built up onto timber grounds (I.e traditional installation). This painted out well, allowed us to match into existing skirtings and also allowed us to build a "box skirting" version that hid radiator feed pipes in situations where the only alternatives would have been to run the pipework on the walls (ugly) or damage/destroy the heavy (and listed) plaster cornice mouldings on the ceilings of rooms below in an attempt to bury the pipework below the floor (if you have ever tried to lift 14 to 24in wide floor boards without breaking them you'd understand why it is not a task you want to attempt to put some radiator feeds out of sight). All this sort of work requires the approval of both the architect and the conservation officer, so it has to look appropriate. One thing for certain about MDF is that on flat surfaces it paints out better than most softwoods if the deco knows his/her stuff