the ply stripping, stainng, sanding

November 14, 2009


Aw geez today was a lot of work, I am a little more then high from all the chemicals I inhaled today. That was with a respirator on by the way. I can taste winwax stain in my mouth and every breath reminds me of how bad this stuff is for you..Make sure you work outside or in a well ventilated area when stripping, staining and resorting the ply…

Today I disassembled the second chair; this was the original chair I had found cast out into a trash pile on the side of the road (road treasure!). I had left the chair after I found it in my parent’s wine cellar for a later date pickup. My folks like me enjoy furniture restoration. I guess the temptation to mess with it in an effort to get it out of their wine cellar was too great so they hopped in and repaired the back. The original owner of the chair had clearly dropped the chair on it back snapping the top screw. Then in an effort to ream out the broken portion of the screw drilled from the front of the mount, but didn’t succeed!!!NO, NO, NO, that is a bad idea to boar out from the front of a mount. My folks cleaver as they are reamed out the screw via the back as should have been done in the first place. Thanks M&D. They also cleaned up the two top ply pieces and stained them according to the real Eames Chairs they own…Nice indeed and appreciated but that presented me with an issue on this dual restoration project. Plycarft chairs are a little rosier in color than real Eames Lounge Chairs.

So my big issue was color matching this chair to the new chair. Just as I had done with the first chair I carefully disassembled the second chair and cataloged all the pieces for later reference.

I also got the idea to roll over to Joann Fabric store and invited the wife. This was met by her advising me an invitation to a fabric store was the least manly thing I had ever asked her to do…And I agree..But furniture restoration, especially an Eames Lounge Chair is a very manly prospect indeed. There is no other chair to sit and watch a football game in my book. I digress. So we roll to joanns to get foam. That store is a joke they only had high density foam which I would not use in these chairs. It would make them less than comfortable. So all in all the Joanns Fabric experience pissed me off completely when my inquiry into whether or not they could order low density foam was met with “no”. So fuck joanns fabric and the shitty little horse she rolled in on..That place is a total waste of time, and their customer service sucks sweaty balls.

On to refinishing…To remove the old finish I used 80 grit sand paper on this chair but lighter pressure and it work pretty quick with the orbital sander. I then followed up with 120 and then 220 grit sand paper. This chair has several areas on the ottoman where the veneer had been chipped off. So boat builder that I am I whipped up some epoxy with a little sanding dust and filled these areas. I have a mountain of epoxy from my boat building project in the garage. You can mimic what I did with 5 minute epoxy. Mix epoxy parts as directed via the product you are using then add sanding dust to achieve a peanut butter like consistency, apply this fudge to any areas you wish to repair. It works far better than wood putty and is strong and your use of sanding dust will automatically color match. Let it dry completely and then sand as you would wood. So after I did this to the ottoman you could not tell it had been damage at all. Once all the ply pieces were stripped and sanded to my liking I prestained them then followed up with a coat of Cherry Minwax. The color was way off from the first chair so I experiment with other stains I had in the shop and found that a quick top coat stain of Jacob Bean darkened this chair to exactly match the first. I only let this dark stain set for a few minutes then wiped the ply completely down. They are now drying in the shop overnight.

As for the first chair I gave it multiple coats of minwax polyurethane, in between coats I sanded with 220 grit. Today I gave the first set of ply a quick 220grit wet sand and a last stain coat over the polyurethane to richen it all up. Everything is now drying in the shop overnight.

While the epoxy dried I took apart each base, polished the chrome, and oiled the ball bearings and spray painted the areas that required a new coat of flat black paint. After all that they looked brand-new…

Tomorrow I will finish coat the first set of ply…and put a couple coats of poly on the second chair ply pieces..

Welting came today that I bought on ebay. It nice stuff a little smaller than I had thought but nice stuff fingers crossed the color will match the hides which are on their way…I am off now to search the web for the correct foam I need….