Brought to a Boil

The front two rooms and the foyer are the only parts of the Devil Queen that didn't have all of their hardware stolen before we bought her. I guess they didn't have the balls to stand out in the open and strip house of all its hardware. Not that I'm complaining. The window locks and pulls are quite nice, but the hinges on the front door are the real treasure.

These buggers were covered under three coats of paint and one or two different layers of shellac. Here is a before view.


Looks pretty bad, though there is a hint of something more beneath.

I unscrewed the hinges (an ordeal in itself) and boiled them in water. I learned this trick from some of you Housebloggers some time ago, but this was my first use of it.

I ended up boiling them four times. I think if I'd left them in longer that I could have striped them faster, but I was too impatient to wait. I tried several different tools to take the loose paint off. I had the best luck with a razor blade and the handle of a metal file. For the "finish" work I used a small wire-bristle brush and a steel wool.

We are going to shellac these. My wife likes the silver sheen, so we're going to use clear shellac instead of the all-holy amber shellac. Sorry Gary.

These hinges are the ones I pulled from the door jamb. In my excitement I forgot to remove their other halves from the door. Oops. What can I say, genius happens.