Dipping doors/gates (in caustic soda)

Petal

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I want to strip the paint of two doors. There is probably about 5-6 layers of paint on them and I guess there might be some lead paint somewhere as they look like the old originals (in an ex 1940's council house). As they are not standard size and are actually nice and robust I want to renovate/restore rather than buy new ones. I'm in the process of getting my hands on some Klingstrip (which will still come in very handy for my staircase and the door-frames), but someone said it would be the easiest to have the doors dipped. I read that this can cause swelling, etc... Does anyone have any experiences with dipping doors and also can anyone recommend a place I can have this done (I'm D12) at and how much does this cost on average?
Furthermore i was thinking that my front Iron gates could do with a revamp - I suppose these could be dipped as well?
 
I had a heap done about 4 years ago - place off the north circular at the back of Croke Park. It was fairly cheap id I remember rights €20 or €30 a pop. Also has a cast iron fire surround done as well. It took 3 or 3 days and they came back spotless - rinse down with a hose and then several coats of wax. They still look great if I do say so myself.

One issue though is swelling - they do. Think I had 9 doors in total dipped and all bar 2 were re-hung too early such that when they "shrank" back to proper size, they have a slightly annoying gap all the way around (~15mm) so I'd advise letting them dry for a few weeks when you get them back from the dipper.
 
Thanks OneAndOnly!

I'm just wondering - if they swelled up that much weren't they too big to be re-hung? And if so would they not dry "back to size" while hanging? I probably don't get this right :) but what's the difference between letting them dry hanging or standing around somewhere?
 
if they swelled up that much weren't they too big to be re-hung? And if so would they not dry "back to size" while hanging?

I'm guessing they were planed down to fit before they had finished shrinking.
Leo
 
I'm guessing they were planed down to fit before they had finished shrinking.
Leo

That's not totally the case.

It takes a long time for a door to dry out if it has been dipped badly eg dipped for a good few hours or over a weekend or even cold dipped.

It can be if the house is too hot and the doors have not been allowed to dry totally.

We (when I worked for a dipping company) did a job on a big house 20 doors stripped them all of paint then refinished them and rehung them and told the people in the house not to put the heating on full blast for at least 2 to 3 weeks or the doors might shrink alot.

Anyway back there 2 months later the house is like an oven and all the doors have shrunk.

The only solution I know to stop that is to let the doors dry for at least 2 to 3 weeks (in a humid enviroment) then put 2 or 3 coats of varnish on the doors that will help stop the doors shrinking.
 
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