the second one looks fine as it is. with the first door I think you have some darkening of the wood due to age. You could wax or what I like to do is use this old recipe. one part linseed oil, one part turpentine, one part vinegar.
what you do is put it in a squirt bottle and shake it up. If you leave it sit the vinegar separates , don't worry about that, it's just in there for cleaning.
rub it in with a cloth and wipe all you can off with dry cloths. Any scratches will be able to absorb oil and it will darken them to about what the other parts are. Where there is finish still on the wood (99% of it) wont' be able to absorb the linseed oil because the present finish ( probably shellac) isnt' porus and wont' really absorb the oil so itll wipe off there and change very little except tiny scratches. but the scratches or places with missing finish do absorb. this hides them. Where it is scratched you dont' see the difference in surface so much as the color difference.
after that you could go with the wax if you want or you could use use the wax. the wax will fill the scratches so the surface is more even thus hiding them more.
because the outer "skin" of the wood is darkened from 100 years of sunlight it's darker. If you start sanding , you can but be prepared to sand it all right down to the lighter wood underneath to achieve an even color. youll need to remove any hardware. that's easy on the flat surfaces you can use a sander, but the moldings will need some hand work and with lots of doors it's lots of work.
Once sanded you can oil or use your preference of coating. If you want it dark like you started with you can spray a toner ( shellac or lacquer or oil) with some stain in it to adjust the color. You can spray or wipe but be aware that wiping on stain can leave streakiness so if I do that I make the adjustments with about three coats without very much color. If you are spraying or wiping on coats of shellac or lacquer you can add colors to make it look about like coffee ( in the liquid state) and the result will be light enough to adjust color but not so dark you get issues with the streaking. you can use amber shellac if you wish.
as Al mentions you can get some funny streaking on some woods if you don't use a sealer. maple is bad for this , fir less so but you might see some. this is because the more porous parts of the grain want to suck up the liquid and take more stain in certain areas than others. You can use spray on products or even just a light coat of shellac first or if you are working with oil wipe on a couple of clear coats and then you can introduce colored oil. the first coats are absorbed into the pore porus areas which decreases the problem. some commercial shops spray on dye and then they dont have the absorption issues as the pigment is more evenly distributed but lets assume you dont' want to spray it.
see what others suggest. There are many different ways you might approach it.
I'd start with the old recipe if it were myself but everyone has different favorite techniques. I dont' like the idea of applying other products overtop of wax so I dont 'use it much but some like it. to be fair you can probably remove the wax with a good rub of solvent or alcohol or something if you want to refinish after applying it. dont' use anything with silicone. it will cause fish eyes if you ever refinish. hopefully the previous owners didn't' use random furniture polishes and such because it would cause havoc if you refinish. I'm not sure about what is in the murphies oil?
Since it is probably shellac it is also possible to wipe on more shellac to renew the finish. you could perhaps do some experiments along the top edge of some doors as no one really looks there or if you can find other old shellacked items to practice with that might be worthwhile.
if you want to wipe new shellac over the old then you have to pay attention to the strength ( pound cut) and how saturated the cloth is. if it is too wet ( with alcohol) it will mess up and maybe run liquid into the old finish causing a defect.
you can fold your rag into a pad and add some liquid as you go.
If your rag gets too dry it will get sticky and want to cling into the existing finish and you dont' want that either. With a little practice you can find a balance and be successful. If you dwell too long on one spot things will go sideways so if you try this , try to keep moving, dont' dwell on one spot, and allow a little time to dry, you can do many many coats and that's french polishing. you can read more about french polishing if you want to try that. try not to bury any dirt into the existing or it will become part of the new finish.
be aware that you cant' just pile up old cloths with oil and alcohol and things, put them in a bucket of water or hang them up outside to dry or toss them on the lawn but dont' pile them together while damp or you can get a fire from spontaneous combustion. no spark needed.
If you wanted to sand only the outside parts and leave the center panel and the molding that would be faster , or if you didn't mind the molding being darker maybe you could mask it off and be careful not to touch it and just refinish the flat areas only. If you want to sand the center panel you could but you'd need to do it by hand near the molding to avoid damage. I'd avoid trying to sand the molding (or Ogee profile) since its going to be too much work.
If you took those doors to a commercial shop they have drum sanders that you could fire the door through and it will come out the other side fully sanded but it would only hit the raised portions on the edges. with the number of doors it might be worth doing that. They might not want to run previously shellacked through. a small shop might just put some older paper on it to do the one job and then discard the paper or maybe charge you for the paper. a large shop probably wouldn't look at this type of work so I'd look for a ma and pop shop that has a drum sander the width of your doors at least. that would save a lot of sanding by hand but you'd still need to do the edges at home.
if you strip them you could spray, wipe or brush on shellac yourself , you could also go to a commercial finishing shop and they would have a spray booth and they could be sprayed with lacquer, that wouldn't take them too long. it is a lot to spray at home but possible depending on your situation and distance from neighbors etc. perhaps a commercial shop could do all the doors in one day if you did the prep work. the spraying is fast but its easier with a real spray booth and you won't have the same issues with dust. I'd use a wipe on or brush on method unless you can at least make an improvised spray booth.
I'll shut up now
see what the other say.
Im long whinded but to sum up three more options to consider
1 - the "recipie"
2- repair the finish with french polishing
3- have a commercial shop help and sand and respray all the doors but mask off the ogee and leave that as is to reduce labor.
Phil
