Advice Needed: Stablizing old paint

[AMarshall]

A friend has asked me to help her build a sales counter for her retail store. As part of the design, she wants to incorporate a couple old doors and windows into the piece. She is going for that "reclaimed material" look so the doors won't be stripped and refinished. I have no problems with the construction, but I need to find a way to stabilize the old paint job on some of these pieces, and also give them a little bit of protection.

For example, take a look at these pictures of a door. The paint is flaking away in many areas. Just running your hand over the door would knock a bunch of chips onto the floor.

I know that a lot of this paint is going to come off no matter what I do, but I would like to save as much as possible. A little bit of protection for the piece would also be nice, though I would like to keep the natural look so a thick glossy finish is not really an option.

I am wondering if anybody has ideas about how to "re-attach" the old paint. I was thinking of flooding the surface with something, maybe like shellac. This might get underneath the paint and form a bond between the wood and the paint. I also have a small HVLP system if spraying would be a better option.

What do you guys think? Anybody ever tried something like this?

[HoboMonk]

The best that you can do is to use a stiff brush to remove the flaking paint then overcoat with shellac (dewaxed). For additional protection, you can top coat with a good varnish, e.g. polyurethane. Note: If the old paint is more than fifty years old, assume that it contains lead and proceed with due safety.

[AceHoleInOne]

I'm with hobo.....maybe even hit it with an ROS sander where raw wood and paint meet. How does a very thin water down paint (white or a yellow or washed out blue) and hit the raw wood areas to add contrast. The problem for me is the exposed wood underneath doesn't look distressed or weathered....just raw wood. So put the thin paint on and wipe back with a wet sponge.

I don't know if I would even bother to seal the old door, let the doors personality come out.

-Ace-

[AMarshall]

Thanks for the replies, guys. I'm really trying to keep as much of the paint as possible, so I would like to avoid going after it with traditional methods. Good point also about the lead content of the paint. That's another reason I don't want to start scraping or sanding, just let things be as they are.

I am likely going to do some testing with shellac and see if it will get in some of the nooks & crannies and grab onto the paint. I'll keep you posted.

[AMarshall]

It's been a while since I started this thread, but in case anybody ever does a search I wanted to follow up with the results.

I ended up spraying shellac onto the old doors and windows. I didn't do any surface prep first because the old paint would flake off if you even looked at it funny. I used the lowest tech sprayer there is - a $1.00 spray bottle meant for household stuff. You know, like an old windex bottle. I sprayed the shellac on the door until it was literally running onto the floor.

This worked fantastic. The shellac got underneath, between the old paint and the wood. After everything dried, the old paint was firmly attached to the door. The shellac kind of "re-glued" it down. There is still some that isn't attached because the curly flakes are so large they raise up off the surface of the door. These will break off, but the part that's caught in the shellac stays put.

So if you are looking for a way to encapsulate old paint to do a "weathered" finish on reclaimed materials, this is one way to go. It sure was easy too - I wish all my finishing could skip the prep stage!