$6-8K to re-finish a door??!?!!??!?!?!?! What did they think they were going to do, gold plate it? Geeze!
Waaaay back when I was in the Navy, we would use floor stripper to remove paint, etc from door hardware. I imagine that the formula has changed since then and it won't work as well, if at all. We would remove all of the hardware, throw it in a bucket with the floor stripper for 15-20 minutes and slide all the old gunk off. A quick rinse, dry and re-install. We never did tell the Chief how we did it.
