(first posted 5/6/2017) Spring is here, which brings about one of my twice-yearly urgings to buy an old car. I successfully resisted the urge last fall (no thanks to a few here who have been the opposite of an “automotive sobriety buddy” – and you know who you are). Part of my success was due to finding another outlet for my desire to twist wrenches and do body and paint work in comfortable weather while listening to a football game on the radio. My resto project? A pair of genuine classic steel lawn chairs. And if you want to see the “After” picture, you will have to read to the end. And sorry, this is not as involved as building a camper out of a plain white Promaster, but sometimes a guy just has to stay within his skill set.
I have always had an eye for old stuff. The styles of the 1930s through the 1950s have always fascinated me, mostly because those objects seldom lived at my own house as I was growing up. But trips to my grandma’s house was always good for a little retro design heaven. Among her treasures was a rusty, flaky pair of old metal chairs that lived out on the small concrete slab behind her house.
Grandma’s chairs were so different from our own, which were those aluminum frames with the woven plastic webbing that always seemed to tear when you sat on them wrong. OK, when you and your sister were jumping on them, right before your Mom shouted “What are you kids doing” and came out to see. Grandma’s chairs were everything ours were not – heavy and solid, seemingly able to withstand everything short of nuclear attack. OK, and weather. They didn’t like weather. Grandma had given it her best shot, occasionally scraping them with a wire brush and slathering house paint on them in an effort to stave off cover the ever-present rust.
Life with my new metal lawn chairs (at least as I imagined it.)
Fast forward about 25 years to when I found myself in my own house. Instead of the vinyl village of the ’80s or the homes of the Atomic Age that I had grown up in, my first house was a little brick bungalow that was built right about the time Henry Ford was closing down Model T production. It had a little front porch, and not just any porch furniture would do. I saw these at a garage sale of an elderly woman who was moving away. I simply had to own these pieces of Americana that would fit so perfectly with our little Coolidge-era home. They were a different style from Grandma’s, chairs and in much better condition – at least there was no house paint. But they needed help, unless I was prepared for a stern talking to from my new wife every time she did laundry. I should add that new versions of these chairs were being sold inexpensively at big box stores, but those seemed so thin and cheap. I figured that these old-timers would last a lot longer with a little work.
One of them was an orangy color and the other was a kind of yellow green, both with white arms. Or rusty white arms. I started to work and got the lime green one apart. I spent pretty much an entire day grinding the metal surfaces with an abrasive sponge on my electric drill. Those tubular legs took a long, long time. I then sprayed them with an anti-rust coating (Oxy-Solv from The Eastwood Company) and finally shot it with primer and then some park-bench-green Rust-Oleum that seemed an appropriate retro color.
And then . . . I got busy. I had some old cars at the time, and got some kids too. Somehow I just never found time to get to that second chair. When we moved to our current (Atomic Age) house, it went into a neglected corner of the basement with boxes stacked on top of it where it stayed for, uh, decades. The green one, meanwhile, served yeoman’s duty on our screened porch.
After we got some new patio furniture, Mrs. JPC began suggesting that maybe I could get to that second chair and repaint both of them to match the other furniture. a couple of years ago I got it out of the basement and started doing a little research. I located a company that sells the hardware to refurbish them and made plans to finally get the job done. But things got busy again, and yeah.
The place where I bought my hardware kits actually sells new versions of my chairs. With the exception of the shape of the legs, they appear identical. So it might be that my chairs were originally manufactured by the Warmack Company of Fort Smith, Arkansas, which was the biggest seller. One little tidbit that I picked up was that the original design incorporated four holes drilled into the seat for water drainage. It was decided later that the holes actually promoted rust instead of preventing it, and the holes were eliminated some time before 1955, leading me to believe that these particular chairs go back to the era of the stepdown Hudson and Chryslers with Fluid Drive.
Anyhow, I finally got busy with the process, which began with disassembly. It was interesting to see how both the 1940s and 1990s paint had faded. There was a part of me that wanted to start with some rubbing compound on the red one to see how much of the finish could be brought back, but I immediately slapped myself and realized what a stupid idea that was. There was far too much surfact rust to make it usable and I have enough such work on my hands with a Miata and a Honda Fit with single stage paint finishes that require annual buffing.
Once I was ready to get underway, I did one thing smarter than before: I called a metal-stripping company to check their price. The short story is that Redi-Strip of Indianapolis did a fabulous media-blasting job on them. I believe that he said he used silica as the blasting medium, but we chatted about other things and I have forgotten. At $35/disassembled chair and a 24 hour turnaround, I would make this trade over two full days with my drill any day.
It is amazing how good the hardware was in the original chair. I figured that vintage hardware deserved the use of some vintage tools, which also worked well. Every fastener came right off with the first twist of a wrench, which is more than I can say on my 1990 refurb, where every single (too-small) bolt snapped off as I tried to remove the nut. Hopefully the new hardware will be better.
The silica blasting worked like a charm, particularly the part that required zero labor from me. The metal finish was slightly rough, all the better for primer adhesion. A quick blasting with some air and a wipe with a tack cloth and we were ready for primer.
My next decision was for paint. One of the few things automotive that I developed some actual skill at was wielding a can of Dupli-Color automotive spray finish. It is not as easy or forgiving as something like Rust Oleum or Krylon, but with the right technique, the look and durability of the finish can’t be beat. Plus, there is a wide selection of automotive colors available. The environmental authorities have not eliminated single stage lacquer in spray cans yet, so I decided to go with what I know while I still can. The color choice? GM Dark Bronzemist Metallic. According to Paintref.com, it was offered by every Division but Cadillac pretty steadily from 1999-2005, thus ensuring easy availability in an aftermarket spray. And Mrs. JPC liked the color.
A string of warm, dry days in October made the decision for me to get busy with the spraying. I prefer to do this outdoors and not in the garage (where dust can be more of a problem) but falling leaves (and walnuts) made my decision for me.
Spray, let dry, wet sand, let dry, turn over, repeat, and so on. Spraying primer is always a low-stress proposition. Yes, bugs and dirt can fly into your wet paint, but it isn’t a finish coat so who cares – every flaw can be fixed with some more sanding and another coat. This low-stress situation stops when you begin spraying the color coat.
Everything started out so nicely. I kind of wondered why I was not getting the nice wet gloss I had become used to with Dupli-Color, and then it hit me: this was no longer your father’s single-stage lacquer. Dupli-Color had tricked me into having to learn a two-step color/clear system. Drat.
Oh well, we all need to learn something new, right? I was less sanguine about the doubling of materials cost, but waddyagonnado?
In the end it all went quite nicely. Other than one gust of wind that blew a bit of crud into one of the chairs at the wrong time. Fortunately these will be going onto my back porch and not into the Museum of Modern Art so the issue was not catastrophic. Final assembly with my new hardware went off without a hitch and my classic/vintage/retro metal chairs were once again presentable. With one little home-cooked improvement – did you know that pieces of old-fashioned rubber garden hose are just the right diameter to make little feet that will keep the steel legs from scraping on concrete and starting the rusting process all over again?
About that – I took the “after” pictures in my living room. And for a few days I held out hope that perhaps these very, very, very expensive chairs might make the cut to augment our indoor furnishings. But – – – no. “Very nice” said Mrs. JPC “but they’re still going back outside.” She was right, of course. And soon the weather will be warm enough to bring them out of storage and onto the porch. Which will make me probably the only guy in my neighborhood with porch furniture older than his house. They certainly have a better paint job.
This brings back memories. First of all, your restoration is terrific. As a boy in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State, where my grandparents had a two-story log cabin that we used in the summer, we had these metal chairs. If the temperature was not eighty degrees Fahrenheit and we were wearing shorts, which was typical, we would freeze our behinds off! So, between the mosquitoes biting and the cold lawn furniture – OUCH! I hope you have a good laugh.
. . . and here in Arkansas where the chairs were made, a few hours in the summer sun was enough to burn unsuspecting behinds. Aftermarket cushions were a popular accessory.
Yes, being made in Arkansas may explain why I see so many of these in local flea markets, and in rural yards…
Nice
Very nice restoration! I picked up a pair of aluminum chaise lounge chairs by the roadside last year (no cushions) that are on my list to refurb. Our front porch is adorned with my grandparents old steel rocking chair – we’d love to find a similar glider to go along with it. A few years back, I bought a 1940s kitchen step-stool that still works great. Seems like that shade of red was very popular on steel chairs and the like back then.
Here’s the porch chair:
And here’s the kitchen stool:
You can get a Cosco (but probably not really Cosco) kitchen chair like that today. The stairs slide in and out on plastic tracks instead of the up and over parallelogram way, and the thing probably weights a third of what the original did. You know, cheap Chinese crap.
I like that rocker. I guess with new hardware and a modern paint color, mine may be more of a restomod? 🙂
Great job! In my lifetime, I have spent a lot of “seat time” in chairs like these (minus the drain holes), unfortunately, the ones that my grandmother had (including a matching rocking chair & glider set!) disappeared some years ago! 🙂
My Grandfather (who’s been gone for 30 years now) used to have an old chair he kept outside under a large chestnut tree next to a small box that served as a table for his radio, which he’d listen to ballgames on during the summer. The chair was shaped similarly to these, except instead of round tubing, the arm/leg was made of spring steel, and when you wanted to get up, you actually leaned backwards and the spring steel would help you get out of the chair (kind of a non-electric precursor to the lift chairs people have inside their house when they are unable to stand up from a seated position). The seat and back were also slatted with steel spreaders We kids loved rocking in the chair, in honor of Jackie Gleason we called it the “to the moon” chair, as it we’d lean back and the spring steel would start our launch out of the chair. Don’t know what happened to it; the chestnut tree itself is gone now, as is my Uncle (who inherited the house) but I guess I’ll ask my Aunt if she knows what happened to it.
The problem with those types of chairs is that the tube bends and eventually breaks. Rust and overweight folks are your enemy. A gusset would help, but that would spoil the esthetic.
Very nice and a great color. The Casa de Shafer would proudly use restored chairs in the living room as it would be far preferable to our damnable couch. Anyway…
It’s good to see these being revitalized. My grandmother also had similar chairs during my childhood. They were painted the same minty green she had painted the wood on her front porch. I seem to remember they developed a tear in the seat which was just enough cause for concern. She still has them and they are somewhere in the gulley near the house where she’s been dumping her trash since she moved there in 1955.
May you and Mrs. JPC enjoy many warm, relaxing evenings in these.
Great article… and one that I could relate to. Well, until I got to the part where the project was actually completed and looks nice. But that’s a small detail.
Last year, my wife and I bought a home, which happens to be a Coolidge-era bungalow. That empty, 200-sq. ft. front porch was just calling out for some period-correct outdoor furniture. So I looked around for used vintage furniture – stuff that could be brought back to life by someone like myself with negligible skills and very little spare time. Eventually I realized that such a thing probably does not exist. I came to my senses, and bought a bargain-priced patio set from Aldi instead. The good news is that I could start enjoying it later that afternoon – what a concept!
Had I bought a set of vintage chairs, something tells me that they’d have found a home in a neglected corner of the basement for the next… oh, two decades or so.
So congratulations on a job well done, and here’s wishing you lots of enjoyable seat time in them!
Current version by Griffith. Powder coated finish and I see they have a different butt crack seat (which I seem to remember from the olden days) and come with the plastic bits on the bottom. Don’t pay more than $60 each. The same company offers other colors and various other varieties. Probably weigh half what the originals did.
Nice job on the chairs. Somehow I remember reading of a similar scenario, also bedeviled by clear coat paint. I suggested shooting them with Cornbinder red as an easier solution.
Yes, you made the right decision to have them stripped professionally.
Stephanie bought an old wrought iron bed that she wanted for my daughter’s bed. It was a mess, with multiple coats of paint and some rust spots. Fortunately, I did the right thing too (for a change), and some primer and red spray paint had it looking terrific. And it still does; it’s still her bed today. 🙂
Sad to say, somehow a couple of these chairs ended up in our back yard (left by a tenant, IIRC). They were a mess, and I was thinking the same as you, but for some reason, Stephanie nixed the idea. She just didn’t like them. Someone took them off our hands, and hopefully they’ve been restored too.
Very nice! I like the modern color much more than the vintage. We had such chairs when I was very young, hand me downs from my grandparents. The holes in the seats would have been helpful. Puddles from rain always made the seats dirty. God, they were hot when the sun hit them.
Last year I made the decision to restore our first set of patio furniture. Heavy steel spring mesh chairs matched to an aluminum glass top table. I was amazed to find I could get the platstic and rubber parts that the sun had burned in the table.. Of course, by the time I bought the parts, paint and primer, I had invested way more than my 1992 price for a bargain clearance table from Target.
But, the kids learned a bit from my project, and the set looks great transformed from white to black.
Having been exposed to these chairs at a very tender age, I share with you an interest in them.
About 30 years ago to the day, my mother bought a small (7) acreage after splitting with my father. She was neither physically nor fiscally fit for the endeavor, but whatever – YOLO.
There was an old farmhouse, a big red pole barn and another building. Along with the buildings, the purchase included considerable personal property (junk). I thought at some point I’d seen a couple of these chairs in the barn.
In the summer of 2020, we moved my mother to an apartment near us and cleaned up the acreage for sale. Checking the barn, rife with patina (filth), were two metal chairs.
Looking a bit bent, and apparently not matching, I had immediate doubt, but took them home anyway. I hosed them off and left them on the patio for a few days of assessment.
Yup, one had a bent frame, and both had some bends and dents in the thick sheet metal. And they didn’t quite match – slightly different frame height and sheet metal stampings. Like yours, the hardware included square nuts – I wonder when that mostly came to an end? Multiple coats of paint? Check. Rust? Check.
Concerned I’d never get the metal straight, and the bent frame might be prone to sagging back to bent, and my need for symmetry thoroughly offended, I decided to part with them. My options were the recycler or give them to a friend of my wife that owns a successful antique and restoration shop. She took them, I’m not sure if out of charity or if they might have been worth something to her.
Found a photo of the chair I recall from my youth, hosting the original owners, my mother, and myself. You can’t go home again, or something like that, right?
When we purchased our previous (atomic age) house about 20 years ago, it came with four wobbly redwood Adirondack chairs covered with peeling (and no doubt lead-full) paint, in the back yard. I would have insisted the seller haul them away, but my wife liked them and I have sanded and repainted them a few times over the years. They are now painted in bright tropical colors and fit in very well by the pool in the back yard of our current 1920’s bungalow. I don’t know their vintage, but I suspect 1960’s at the newest; construction is with nails, not screws, though I did replace some of the nails with screws to cinch up the joints. If I ever do it right, I’d tear them apart and use glue and SS screws. Not likely …
Beautiful job! I love the choice of paint too.
After being burned by some “box” store patio chairs I’ve been on the prowl for some vintage stuff.
I’d like to share a tip on media blasting. If you can find a family owned monument company (headstones and the like) in the area you can usually get blasting done super cheap. The one I use did all of the painted parts of an old Honda (3 wheeler, not a car) I’m restoring for $30. It was well worth 3x that much for a labor free fresh start.
Nice job Jim. I wouldnt have thought about that color for metal chairs but these are really classy.
Mark
I grew up in northern IN and I remember these chairs very well. We had several, and most of our neighbors did as well. Our chairs were painted more than once over the years, always in red. As one poster said, you didn’t want to sit down in them in shorts when they’d been in the sun for a long time! Your color choice is terrific.
Very nice ! .
-Nate
Nice job!
This reminded my of my great aunt and uncles’ house in Pomona, CA. in the mid 50’s. Big back yard with a shade tree and at least a couple of these metal chairs to sit in…….
Their ’56 Buick wasn’t bad to sit in, either.
Nice work with the chairs.
The rubber doormat in the first photo caught my eye. I don’t think I’ve seen of those in years. When I was a kid, we knew someone with one like that. I remember it was fun to fold it up into different shapes.
“..sometimes a guy just has to stay within his skill set.”
That made me laugh. Mine set is very, shall I say, circumscribed, and I’ll admit to the sin of plain old envy at those who can do more. Or who can at least finish the job. My admission of defeat came in the sulky presence of a never-finished Singer sewing machine table, which made a sort-of table for years, till it became unarguable that rust on an indoor furnishing was not patina but just grot.
These bits and bobs have a way of making us a bit irrational because they attach themselves like a stray. Thus 20+ years to resto-mod some old mass-produced seats. A great story. Thankyou.
Great job JP. Whenever I see these chairs it takes me back to summer days at my grandparents house in St Louis. Gramps had 3 or 4 these chairs. Every couple of years he’d slap another coat of grass green oil base paint on em that took 3 days or weeks to dry.
Restomod chairs, Hillarious!
I became a bit of a rattle can body man myself when my kids were young drivers, banging up their liabilty insured cars. At least they were 20 footers when I was done.
“Rattle can body man”
Hahaha, I love this, and describes my skill level pretty well. 🙂
I like the fact this has taken a little while. But, if a chap says he’ll do it, he’ll do it and he doesn’t need reminding every 6 months.
Will you be imposing the dress code of the suit, waistcoat and pipe on all users of these chairs, as shown in the third picture?
Dress code? Why, yes I will, Roger. I see no reason my guests should not join into my household lifestyle which includes dressing formally for cocktails each evening on the lawn. You, being British and all, probably live this lifestyle as well?
I painted my motorcycle twice with rattlecans. 2002 Suzuki VStrom. First repaint was 3 stage Color changing green to purple. My normal painter/friend was amazed with my paint job. Second was a base coat medium blue metallic. No clear. I liked the satin finsih. It lasted 7 miles when an elderly Canadian couple decide to do a u turn on a 55 mph road between 2 blind curves. But the insurance company allowed full price for the aftermarket paint job. I’ll pint anything I can with a spray bomb.
Love the chairs.
Those are just like the ones my grandparents had. I did a lot of seat time in them as a young kid. After a while the front curve of the tubing began to bend which put the rear of the chair lower than it should be. It also made the chairs kind of bouncy. Grandpa was a welder by trade so he just welded two sections of rebar between the rear of each seat and the tubing below. That took care of the problem.
Mom and dad had a pair of those steel chairs. I often wish I would have bothered to restore them, but I was too young and they were gotten rid of before I grew up some.
Aluminum-framed strap chairs replaced them, and through the years, I can’t tell you how often I re-strapped many generations of those things. They did sell the tape for that purpose!
This article reminds me that I have an old fan on a stand that is removable, and I have thought about restoring it. This fan works great, and is very powerful, so it would be something to hang on to. This fan was given to us back in the 60s and was used not only to cool us off, but also used as an exhaust fan for a garage paint booth at my parents’ house and my buddy’s up the street, plus my house later for everything to drying out carpets and garages.
Bronze Mist (not dark Bronze Mist) was on a lot of 2000-2004 Cadillac Devilles…horrible color to shoot. My painters could NOT get the Sikkens to ever lay down without mottling and looking blotchy as hell. Wound up getting Standox as a secondary paint brand in the shop largely because of that particular color.
Those chairs look amazing! There’s a real sense of accomplishment when a seemingly simple little project like that turns out so well!
You get it – many of those metallic colors are nasty to apply well. Spray too dry and the color is too light (and you need to do a snotload of buffing). Spray too wet and you get blotchy metallic areas (not to mention paint runs). A friend and I painted my 71 Scamp years ago with his spray gun and a borrowed compressor. My rattlecan experience mixed with that one gave me a genuine respect for a good car painter.
I don’t have any, but I’ve always liked those chairs.
Kudos to you for the color and the time and effort you put into refinishing them. I’m afraid I’m more in the slathering-housepaint-school……
@ JPC: Not only did my grandmother own two of the standard chairs like yours, she also had a matching rocking chair, and a two seat “glider’ swing, all in the same style! Alas, they’ve all disappeared now……. Great job on yours!! 🙂
This was both entertaining and informative, JPC–thanks for a nice start to my day as our (Great Lakes) weather warms up.
Given all your auto-knowledge, I think of you as quite a wrencher, so thanks for making me feel better about my limits (and limited adventurous). I live near a large urban area, so if I take on something like this I’ll now think to check out a stripping/blasting place; me, I haven’t used a sandblaster since 1973….
Hey, bravo! That’s very fine work, and it’s planted a couple of slow-growing idea-seeds for me. H’mmm.
Great save! There’s a certain satisfaction in saving something old and made of metal from being thrown out, and restoring it to as-new condition.
About 35 years ago I rescued this old tricycle from a farm rubbish dump and restored it for our kids. I used rattle cans of car paint to near-match the original colours. I found an old bicycle repair shop that could apply new rubber to the wheels, and also had handlebar grips and other oddities I needed.
Now it’s scratched and dented once again, and my granddaughter rides it around the yard. She’ll soon outgrow it, and it’ll go back in the shed for another generation – I hope.
Our throw away society is unsustainable long term so I applaud anyone who makes the effort to preserve old stuff. A good healthy glug of raw linseed oil inserted into those tubular arms/legs and swooshed around to cover all internal surfaces will go a long way towards staving off rust from inside.
This article really caught my attention as I am currently rehabbing 2 of what look to be identical chairs.
I’d been looking for a pair for years, as here in Ohio, even really poor condition ones were going for 75 to 100 dollars a piece. I found them on Facebook marketplace, both for 50, so I snatched them up.
Lot of surface rust, but otherwise sound, the arms are galvanized pipe, not the thin tubing you see today. Used a wire wheel on a 4″ grinder, then a flap wheel, and a small sandblaster to get the tight spots. I decided to rattle can them with Rustoleum and I’d say they were so well built, that they will last the rest of my life.
Yours will look fantastic, much better than mine, but I’m pretty happy with mine.