How to make the natural wood grains become visible on my wooden door?

Question

Scenario. I have a wooden door that's:

• Made by whitewood that's covered by a plywood.
• The plywood has white ash veneer pressed on it from the plywood factory. It's a 4mm thick plywood that's manufactured pre-pressed with white ash veneer atop.
• The white ash veneer layer on the plywood is already stained and sealed with protective coatings for outdoor use.
• The door's frame is made of some white wood that's stained similarly.
• This is exterior door subject to humidity, UV, rain, wind, etc.

Problem. The stain that was used on the pressed white ash veneer is too dark, which makes the natural wood's grains of the veneer layer invisible. Effectively the door looks no different than, say, a plastic or metal door, which is defeating the design purpose of the door.

Goal. Make the door look like as if the stain that was used was a very light brown one, similar to the butternut wood photo below:

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Options that I guessed so far.

1. Use stain remover, and chip a thin layer of wood, then apply a new stain. But I doubt that the pressed veneer is thick enough to allow for any thinning.
2. Bring a thin butternut veneer and press it on the door and the frame. Two ways to do it:
   1. Remove old plywood-with-pressed-ashwood, then press the new butternut veneer. But I'm not sure how easy it is to remove the pressed plywood (glued onto the door frame).
   2. Press the new butternut veneer right on the ash wood veneer. But I'm not sure how good it will stick, and what kind of preps must I perform in order to ensure a long-lasting door.
3. Apply a hybrid approach: de-stain and strip the thick wooden frame. But press butternut on the door. Then stain the thick wooden frame to match the door's look. But I doubt that they will match the colours.

Looks-wise, I think option (2) would be best, as I can bring veneers that look as I want, without even needing to stain it (simply seal it with protective coatings). But durability-wise, I'm very unsure about any option I thought of so far.

Any other thoughts are highly appreciated.

Answer 1

Buy a new door.

Refinishing
Unless there's something unusual about the door that's not evident from the description it literally isn't worth the time and effort to strip and refinish. Even if you price your time at $0.00 (which is fine, many do for home projects) there's a strong argument to be made that it's still not worth the costs involved, unless you already own all the necessary chemicals and/or tools¹.

Beyond just general stripping, if it is veneered in ash as you think this is an open-pored wood, and getting that dark stain out of deep grain lines/open pores is often a nightmare. It takes what is already a slow, tedious job and adds even more tedium and effort — in furniture work it's often the case that you would be going over the entire piece with a small wire brush or pointed tools to remove the last traces of stain or coloured finish. Yes, this does take approximately as long as you're imagining it does².

Furthermore, modern veneers can be structurally damaged by the veneer-cutting process. The wood is sort of fractured, which causes it to absorb more stain/coloured finish, and as a result modern plywoods are notorious for staining much darker than solid wood of the same species. And you guessed it, it makes it much harder to remove stain; it's actually sometimes impossible to remove all traces of it, because you can't sand deep enough to get to fresh wood as you can on thicker veneer, or with solid wood.

New veneer? Nah.
First off, you need to strip before you tackle this so you're doing at least half of the above already o_O Even putting this aside re-veneering something this size is, I suggest, not a job for a first-timer. People generally start learning to veneer on small boxes!

Additionally:

• The cost of suitable veneer might be quite a bit higher³ than you're expecting.

• The normal veneering process can't be used, in short because Applying veneer to an exterior door with contact cement isn’t adviseable. This virtually makes it an impossible job for someone without a well-stocked workshop because of the needed equipment (not least of which is about a zillion⁴ clamps).

• What are your thoughts on home security? You'll be without a front door during the whole process.

Note: you're not losing all the value of the existing door — you should be able to sell it on for a good portion of its price if it's new or in very good condition, giving you a net gain over the original plan :-)

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¹ Buying everything from scratch you could easily get close to, match or even exceed the price of the door depending on your local prices and the tooling you consider necessary to complete the job.

² I've spent half an hour just tackling some white paint flecks that got onto the already finished walnut veneer on a piece. If the whole item had been painted white I wouldn't even have bothered trying to strip it, I'd have prepped for new paint.

³ Read: substantially higher. The veneer may cost nearly four hundred after shipping! How much is a new door?

⁴ I exaggerate, but only slightly. To do this well might require 40+ clamps; absolute bare-bones this would set you back ~$200.

Answer 2

Use stain remover, and chip a thin layer of wood, then apply a new stain. But I doubt that the pressed veneer is thick enough to allow for any thinning.

There's no fixing the existing veneer. Face veneers on plywood are very thin -- the internet says they're 1/30" on average, which means that half the time they're thinner than that. It might be a little thicker in the case of your door, but even so, it's very likely that any stain will have completely permeated the veneer.

For that reason, and all the ones that Graphus cited... buy a new door.

Answer 3

1. Stain remover worked fine for removing most of the stain and other upper lacquer/sealer layers.
2. A thin layer of veneer then was pressed on the door. All good without buying a new door.

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Todo:

• Upload before/after photos, alongside details.
• Update post after a year to report on the long-term effect.