Q: I'm hoping you and your readers can help me revive these diner chairs that I rescued them from my neighbors trash. The legs are dull and tarnished and the seats have white paint splattered on them but other then that they are in great condition! Anyone have a suggestion for removing the paint and shinning up the metal legs?
Asked by Chelsey
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Pick up some chrome polish and some non-acetone nail polish remover. The chrome polish should clean up the legs with a little elbow greas. the nail polish remover shold be ble to take off the pain splatter (be sure to test it on the materail in a concealable location before using a main section to make sure it won't harm the covering). They dont have to be perfect, that is part of theith charm.
I'd recover the chairs. It looks like the padded portions should come off fairly easily.
You can also use 0000 super fine steel wool for the legs. For the vinyl, be carefull what you use and make sure to test an area like Hookdntx mentioned. Most things that will take off the paint will dull the surface of the vinyl in that one spot. A Mr. Clean Magic Eraser usually works just fine for removing paint from vintage vinyl upholstery as long as the paint isn't thick.
I did this just a bit ago for my mustard yellow table and chair set. After trying Goo Gone, Bartender's Friend and various other cleaners, the best solution was....drumroll, please...Magic Eraser. I was able to salvage the chrome AND vinyl, and didn't have to resort to recovering.
We're doing a set of school chairs similar to this right now. We stripped any of the remaining paint off of the legs and polished them. We sanded down the wood inside the back and are going to stain it. And then we're recovering the seat with a brownish wool material we picked up at JoAnn Fabric. It's taking a little while, but it's really fun. We also toyed with powder-coating the frame, but we wanted to use a bit of wood and a 3-color combo didn't look as good as the "raw" look we ended up with.
I have done the same thing with rescued diner chairs and the bet thing for the legs is called NAVAL JELLY, which you can get in hardware stores. It apparently takes barnacles off ships. You can use a foam brush to brush it on, let it sit for a few minutes, then rinse it with water. It works great!!! Only use steel wool if it doesn't work the first time.
Thanks everyone for the great suggestions! I don't want to recover them (yet). I'm running out to get a magic eraser (already tried the nail polish and it didn't work).