I am now going to show you how to take cheap crappy "Made in China" door hinges that cost $1.07 each at Lowes and make them look like they fit in an old house. Now, I will admit that if I had a can of black gloss spray paint, this would have been an easier task. I don't have any black gloss. I only have white gloss and clear varnish sprays. So I am going to use something that I have, hmmmm, what could that be? Oh look, I have walnut colored, aniline tinted shellac left over from the floor and the stair risers that I did in 2005!
This stuff looks really good when it is painted over polished steel. I used it on an Eastlake latch lock that I found for $4.00. It only needed one or two thin coats and then I sprayed it with varnish. I don't have any photos yet but I'm sure I will when I mount it on the door that these crappy hinges are for.
So what about those crappy hinges? Well here they are.
This is them with one and two coats of tinted shellac to show you the effect.
I want them to look painted and dark so I have to apply many coats of shellac. The end result is a very dark brown that appears to be black. When done I spray them with enamel gloss varnish to protect the finish. Here is the end result.
The hinge on the right shows the reverse side where I had to ensure that the visible part of the hinge was coated. You can see the broad range of color that adding additional coats creates.
Based on the position of the door, no one is going to notice these hinges anyway which is why I went "cheap, cheap, cheap" when I saw them.
I think I can lay off the shellac posts for awhile. The word is out.
For all the guys out there who read this, the word of the day is "Legs." Help spread the word......
6 comments:
Oooooh Aaaaah
Very nice!
hmmm...no word of the day for the ladies huh?
not fair!
*hinges turned out nice though :)
I love your blog! I'm fairly new to the blogging thing and I've really become hooked on home improvement and home repair blogs. I checked out your blog today and found it to be quite interesting. I have my own personal blog about home improvements, http://homeconstructionimprovement.blogspot.com and I’ve been searching for ways to meet other home owner blogs and getting more traffic to my own site. My wife found a great way of doing that by joining a couple of blogrolls. The problem is I couldn’t find a home improvement blogroll anywhere, so I decided to create my own and I’m hoping folks like you will try it out and help spread the word. Directions for it can be found at http://homeimprovementblogroll.blogspot.com . The basic idea is when you put the blogroll on your blog you are creating links to other blogs, the good news is everyone that puts the blogroll on their site gives you back links. I hope you’ll try it out and let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Todd Fratzel
Todd - you're missing the mother of all home construction blogrolls...
http://houseblogs.net
A lot of bloggers (me included) don't do blogrolls because there are way too many great sites out there, and so little room to link them all!
Gary- We had some old hinges for our swinging door that were rusted and needed fixing up. I applied rust remover and then I painted them with enamel black paint. The only problem is that when the hinge operates, some paint has been rubbed off. I wonder if shellac would work better? Any opinion on this?
Thanks :)
Jocelyn,
Shellac can chip too but would be a great finish over polished iron because you only need two thin coats of the clear variety. These hinges have quite a thick coating of shellac. Between coats I made certain to flex the hinges and when I was done I oiled them to make them work properly. You could probably use a permanent marker on the chipped areas and no one would notice!
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