Restoring Casalino chairs

Over the past month, my roving eye has been searching for two vintage Casalino chairs to use on our deck.

Casalino chairs were designed in 1971 by Alexander Begge for Casala and are made from moulded plastic. It was the outdoor chair to have in the 70s. And for me, it is the outdoor chair to have in the 2010s.

They have a great cantilever shape, are stackable up to four chairs and weatherproof.

As part of my search, I've been harassing Katherine from theoldboathouse and doing random drive-bys in suburbs with hard rubbish collections. Look, I even dabbled with....(Gasp! Was that thunder I just heard?)...buying replicas!!

Before: these Casala chairs are a pale blue and green

Well, the search is over. I bought two vintage Casala chairs on ebay (which was very silly, since I paid too much for them). But then there were another five for sale in Saturday's paper. I bought those too (because they were a good price). So now I have seven chairs.

Not sure what came over me - I must have Casala fever!

I'm now restoring them. Apparently the done thing is to take them to a panel beater and have them re-sprayed with 2 pack paint. It makes them glossy and more durable; even better than brand new.

The chairs are in reasonable condition, so I felt I didn't have to do this step. The chairs were just extremely scuffed and grimy, but they hadn't achieved that super-chalky texture which occurs on these chairs.

Check out the filth!

The first step was to give them a thorough wash with warm soapy water (I used dish washing detergent and a green scourer). With a bit of elbow grease, this lifted off most of the marks. For the really ingrained dirt, I used a spray on mold remover, left if for a few minutes and rinsed it off. Make sure to wear gloves and long sleeves to avoid fibre-glass itch when you're scrubbing.

With the power of Google, I discovered that a cut and polish suitable for fibre-glass would help restore and protect the finish. We used Autosol but there are a couple of other products which do the same thing. Just rub  it on and polish off.

Image from here

The stubborn marks came off easily and with a clean towel I was able to buff the chairs, creating a nice low sheen.

The chairs don't look like they are over 30 years old and equally important, they don't look brand spanking new.

So far, I'm really happy with the result. They've certainly come up a treat, but I'll keep you posted about how the finish lasts.

After: the finished pale green and blue Casala chairs. They look fantastic now!

Two of the five white Casala chairs. These have been cleaned but not yet cut and polished.