Refinishing Door Hardware, Part 1
This is the first of two posts highlighting one of our recent refinishing jobs.
Back in March, we had a local Chicago resident named Sam find us through Google. He posted on our blog asking about his DIY home restoration project. For this project, Sam was restoring a front door along with the door’s hardware. He contacted us to refinish the door handle, knocker, and lock cover plate. These pictures below show the original state of the items.
During our initial phone call with Sam, we learned that he wanted the door handle, door knocker, and door lock plate cover refinished in a dark bronze finish. Since these items would be mounted on a front door, there were a couple of key technical considerations with this job. Most importantly, the finish needed to be durable enough to withstand the harsh outdoor weather in Chicago. Sam was able to give us some overall dimensions for the pieces and we responded with a cost estimate for the work. Satisfied with the initial estimate, Sam brought the pieces in for us to take a look at.
Once we got the items in our shop, we discovered something about the pieces that was hidden by the paint and years of tarnish. The items weren’t actually made of bronze. It turned out that one of the pieces was made of steel and two of the other pieces were made of white metal. To find out how we handled this surprise and how the final product looked, check out our post next week.
