Weekend Project Complete. I Finally Got The Hardoy Butterfly Chair Frames Primed And Painted Sunday. Status: Before And After Satiny Black.

Any of my neighbors who might have been awake at 2am last night might think I'm a little weird.  Who spray paints chair frames hanging from a tree in their front yard...at 2am?  This guy.  That's who!  Hey, it was warm...and well, they were already hanging there from the primer spraying earlier during the day.

As you might recall, I purchased this pair of vintage Hardoy "Butterfly" chairs from the South

County antique mall for a song just a couple of weeks ago.  Nothing about them was mint but

the frames were solid and the slings still serviceable.  One of the frames was covered in surface

rust and the other was badly painted with shiny black paint.

One of the chairs had duct tape wrapped around the lower "knees" of the chair.  Dunno why.

This was the same frame that had the surface rust so I unwound the tape and broke out the

3M paint stripper wheel and drill.  I took it mostly down to bare metal and left the painted

one as is, less cleaning it with some Goof Off so that the primer would have a clean surface

to adhere to.

After spending about an hour and a half (maybe longer) stripping the paint and rust off the one

frame and cleaning up the other I got out the rattle can of primer and hung the frames from the

tree in the front yard.  I almost ran out of primer as I had used this can on another project, but

I had just enough.  I left the frames hanging in the tree to dry.  Then, like I said above, at about

2am I decided to go ahead and give the frames a shot of the rattle can Satin Black.  I missed a

few spots in the dark but this was just the first coat.

The initial coat was good enough for me to get these pics shot this morning.  Much better pics

than my first attempt a few weeks ago.  After shooting the pics I removed the slings and gave

the frames another shot, hitting the spots that I missed last night.  They'll get another couple of

thin layers before I'm done.  They won't be as durable as if they had been powder coated but

I've got some other steel items that I've painted like this that have been sitting out in the elements

for many seasons and are still looking good.  It's the "feet" that worry me most though.  These

will be skidded on concrete every time they get moved and that will wear right through the paint

no matter how many layers I give them.





These are gonna look great when I'm done.  I'm on the fence about flipping them.  I so totally

don't need any more patio furniture and I actually have another set of Knoll style Hardoy

Butterfly chairs but that works both way with me since I like to have "sets"!  I'm pretty sure I'll

be offering these to the public shortly.  Next project is the bases of those Coral Barstools,

again in Satiny Black!