I purchased some Candy Cab Stools from YAJ since I wanted an additional 4 stools and the Taito ones are just way out of the budget with current pricing.
With that in mind, I knew they were going to be in rough shape, but like everything in this hobby, I’m always up for the challenge! 🙂
When the stools arrived, I expected them to be bad, but I just didn’t realise how bad they were! They were heavily rusted, they smelt and of course, they were quite uncomfortable compared to the Taito version. What more can you want for 38 AUD?
This was the typical condition of each stool
Since I’m a sucker for punishment and I always like a good challenge, I decided to give refurbishing the whole thing a crack.
First step was to steel wool out as much rust as I could from the stool
I wasn’t too worried about the rust spots were the seat itself is because it’ll be hidden and I couldn’t really do much with the parts that had rotted away.
Next was polish each part of the leg with some stainless steel polish. After about 30 mins worth of polishing, the feet came out pretty good
Once the polishing was completed, it was time to reupholster the cushion.
I went into Spotlight to get the closest material to the red, unfortunately, this was all I could get. Not as dark and vivid, but that’s all I could find
Next was a trip to Clark Rubber to purchase a 400mm x 400mm x 50mm high density foam to use for the cushion. This is way thicker than the original, but I wanted these stools to be more comfortable than the previous version
Traced out the old cushion onto the new cushion. I cut using a standard stanley knife, it wasn’t the best cut, but I don’t have a expensive foam cutter 🙂
Once the shape was cut out, I placed the material, then the foam and then the plywood to clamp down onto the work bench so the cushion would drop to about 25mm.
Don’t be too shy with the staple gun! 🙂
After completing the first lot, it’s pretty evident I’m no upholsterer 😀 (look at the edge, it’s got a number of creases and not a seamless line – not sure why that’s the case, but it’ll do). There’s definitely an improvement in the comfort level compared to the original
Rinse and repeat another three times and a good Sunday afternoon’s worth of work, we now have four completely refurbished stools ready for the Garagecade 🙂
