Discussion Forum - Northstar Chevelle Club

I inherited a set of 6 Homecrest swivel rocker patio chairs from my Dad. He bought them new in 1985. From what I recall, they were premium expensive back then. We've had them for about 15 years. The chairs & cushions have always been stored indoors (shed), which probably extended their life considerably.

40 years later they were showing some signs of wear. The straps/webbing was very crispy & brittle, several had snapped. The paint finish has seen better days, and the plastic end caps for the tubing (the ones that were still present) were UV'd to dusty & brittle. Last spring I started researching the project of rebuilding them.

Homecrest is based in Wadena & New York Mills MN. They have an extensive archive area to research their old product. Also (even back in the day) they applied coded stickers to the chairs that revealed the style, etc. (a build sheet). Unbelievably they still have all the plastic end caps in stock, pre-cut replacement webbing, and rebuild kits for the swivel mechanism!

This spring I got back on the project.

My problem was finding a media blasting vendor that would do a small job, and not destroy the aluminum frames. Another problem was finding a powder-coating outfit that would do a small job, but had the facilities/oven large enough to hold the chair frame. Took awhile, but I was successful.

The powdercoating outfit - Tin Roof Powdercoating - has a neat setup. He only uses powder from one vendor - Prismatic Powders. They have a deal that for $10 you can order five,  1" x 4" samples (on aluminum) of any powder they offer. Takes 2-3 days to get them. (We wound up ordering twice) What Tin Roof will do is purchase the samples from you, and he adds them to his sample library.

Before (this is the best of the six):

After:

To replace ONE of these chairs new from Homecrest is $800.

Media blasting - 6 chairs (broken down to 3pc each/18 pieces) = $225

Powdercoating - 18pcs. , 4 lbs. powder = $675

Rebuild parts - swivel kits, 54 straps, end caps, etc. = $525

For $1400 I've got six brand-new chairs.