Bentwood chairs

Hi All,

Just after a bit of advice. I picked up a bunch of bentwood chairs online for next to nothing. They were previously hit with a gloss coat of various pastel shades of paint, hence the cheap price. When I was stacking them in my garage I noticed they had stamps on the bottom and are original thonet bentwood chairs, made in Poland. If its possible to strip them to timber o would like to but I would need to be very careful about how to do it and sanding and scraping wouldn’t work as they have a very delicate embossed patina on the seat. Is there a gentle way of stripping the paint back? What product would be the right one to use and how should I go about it? Or should I just go straight to painting them in a dark brown/black colour and save the hassle/chance of ruining them etc as this was almost the colour many of them were originally stained anyhow?

Nice chairs. I haven't done chairs, but I've stripped other stuff with Citristrip and it seems to do ok, but makes a mess so do it outside if you can. Smells nice though. You might find it hard to get into the cracks though.I think the pattern might survive something like extra fine wire wool rather than sand paper.

This to the unitiated may sound a little harsh, but are a few things things to consider. Given in the first instance you managed to get them for a very good price, what is there intended purpose? If to on-sell for a higher price, personally from my experience I don't think I would bother trying to clean them up. Bentwoods when even in good (polished wood) condition, don't actually sell for a lot at auction, ( I received stuff all for the last 4 I off loaded via auction) although in antique shops and gift shops etc, seem to command a better price.

If on the other hand they are for personal use again, the time to clean all the paint off and then re-polish is unlikely to be worth the effort. However, and given I have paint stripped by hand countless pieces of antique furniture and joinery and then french polished them, who am I to comment, should you like the idea of the challenge.

The problem with bent woods is that they are relatively flimsey, and given the design, getting all the paint off without taking them apart could be somewhat difficult.

As to how to strip, basically I seriously wouldn't be too concerned there, the legs will easily take normal paint stripper and coarse grade steel wool perfectly well. Once all the muck is off then you would need to sand back using various grades of sand paper, eg. 120, 280 and 400 to get a fine finish. For myself being anally retentive if I were to do these, french polish is the correct period finish, but it would be time consuming. You could always use something like danish oil, or even tung oil.

The seat part is basically embossed into the ply and again, I would think should also be conduscive to the same process described above, albeit I probably would do away with 120 grade sandpaper step.

Given the number of chairs and how fiddly chairs are to restore, possibly simply painting them brown could be easy/quick option. Good luck

Thornet of Austria,- Well known European Bentwood Chair Manufacturer back in the NINETEENTH Century. The seats are an early 20th. Century addition, probably added by whoever did the painting, as the Original Thornet Chairs always had woven Cane Seats,- not the common woven cane roll stuff either,- but actually hand-woven canework into a series of evenly-spaced holes round the seat base. Have restored a few over the years,- actually have a photocoped Book here somewhere in my collection of, " useful info, " which shows some of the Thornet Range of Chairs - just went and found it, ( the photocopies ), Book is called, " A Catalogue and History of Cottage Chairs in Australia, " by Peter Cuffley & Kevin Carney. Printed,- 1974.
There is all kinds of interesting info here in about 166 photocopied pages of fascinating info,- including the history of The Melbourne Chair Company !! ( more Aussie history )
Found it,- Austrian Bentwood Chairs, ( Thornet of Austria ), also made in Poland under License. Shown in a copy of F Lassetter & Co. Limited, Sydney, Catalogue, of about 1900. Plain Austrian Bentwood Chair, with woven cane seat,- Price,- 1/- ( Yep,- One Shilling way back then !! ). - Wages those days were heaps lower than today,- about the same value, ( I think ), or about 5/- per week, therefore allowing for Inflation,- Some other, " bright spark, " can work out the modern-day values !!
** The most interesting, & complicated Bentwood Chair I have ever come across, and restored for its owner was an 1890's Thornet Bentwood Perambulator Chair, which i did, ( from memory ), back in the late 1970's, and was eventually sold at Auction by the former owner's family, some 10 years later for $1,000. as I personally know the private collector who bought the chair. Yes,- somewhere here I have a before and after photos of this chair, ( as in, " somewhere ????? " )

Someone here will find this info to be absolutely fascinating.
Roger