Restoring stadium seats

[Fuddjcal]

Would anyone have any opinions on what to do with Original Dodger Stadium seats? There is no wood or seat with them, but are just the original brackets finished with very little rust. They were "borrowed" from Dodger Stadium during the original constuction and have been stored for 50 years in a crawlspace. I have about 20 seats worth of these originals and would love to do something with them. Thanks

[batsballsbases]

This is a great topic,and yes I would say its a 50/50 split. But I would restore them. Here is a great story why. This is on The 73 restoration of yankee stadium. In my town a company called United house wrecking bought up about 20,000 yes 20,000 of the yankee seats and were selling them for between 5-10 dollars each. 10 if you wanted a double pair. Many people bought them and they were sold to people all over the area. Fast forward to about 1985. Im in the landscape tree business and we are on alot of properties, I was giving an estimate for a rather large job for one of my clients who had just bought a house and wanted to re landscape. as we were clearing out an area by an old pool I came upon a set of 2 decent yankee stadium box seat chairs. I was excited! I asked my client what she wanted to do with them and she said they are yours if you want them I couldnt get my men fast enough to load them into the truck. They were decent but a little rough. Well after the excitement wore off they sat in my shop for 20+ years. Problem was they were peeling ,one of the slats was broken and they were just not something you would want to sit in. One day my oldest son asked me about the seats and it got me to thinking about finally fixing them. Biggest problem was that slat,it was curved. I called every one of the seat restorers on line and no one would sell me a curved slat. (I dont think they had one) I finally was able to get a local wood shop to make me some of the slats and the project began! I called one person who does restore these seats and what he told me was to leave as much of the old paint as possible( The original paint was called sea foam green) and to get the original paint match color. (Yankee stadium blue) A sherwin williams paint #. (Still in use). We took them all apart and cleaned them.I used all the original bolts, was lucky enough that they were still good. Well it turned out to be a great project and I do have some pics. I will put them in to 2 posts as they all dont fit. The seats came out great and I have asked many who have sat in them to tell me which is the replaced slat and not one has got it right. I guess in my case I would restore them and if I had to do it again I would probably do it again!

[batsballsbases]

last pic

[sschauer]

Yes I'm married but she allows me the basement man cave and my office to decorate how I please. My plan is to display them but seemed silly to purchase something then turn around and ruin the value could have gone to Vegas and pissed away money if I wanted.

They're a row of 5 and really considering cutting them apart into 2 pairs with an extra seat that would just be the wood and seat bottom. Makes it easier to display as a row of 5 is almost 8 foot long.

Or other option take them apart keep the original slates intact and just use replacement wood painted correctly that way could always reform them into a row of 5.

Looking into soda blasting the paint and rust off they might be able to just remove the top layer paint and leave the original green on the wood parts would be the ideal solution. But have to weigh cost of that.

[karamaxjoe]

My experience would be to restore the seat unless it has the original paint on the outside. I spent months restoring a figural Tiger Stadium Seat that had paint from a local college team on the seat. You might say it was a labor of love and I never thought I would sell the seat. Little did I know I would sell the seat a year after restoring it since I found something I had to have and I'm not a Tigers fan. The seat sold for 4K in an auction 10 years ago and I doubt it would sell for half that today. I miss having the seats in my office and I hope whoever has them today enjoys them.

Mike

[Kawika]

At first I thought the tiger was holding a vuvuzela but upon closer inspection I see that it is a bat.
I am sure that whomever (whoever?, whatever) owns the seats now is enjoying them. I know I would be. You did a beautiful job of restoration.

[Jim VB]

Mike,

Those seats look terrific. In fact, almost too good.

Remember these are stadium seats. Most never saw any kind of preparation, or restoration. They got painted. Every few years. Period.

In the case of the Yankee Stadium seats, some (the straight back and seats) went into the Stadium in 1923.

The curved back and seats, were installed sometime in the 1940's when they pulled the folding chairs out of the box seat areas.

If you want to make them look like they did, get some of that Yankee Stadium blue, from Sherwin Williams and slather it on!


(But, like David said, you did do a terrific job of restoring them.)

[jcmtiger]

Originally Posted by batsballsbases

This is a great topic,and yes I would say its a 50/50 split. But I would restore them. Here is a great story why. This is on The 73 restoration of yankee stadium. In my town a company called United house wrecking bought up about 20,000 yes 20,000 of the yankee seats and were selling them for between 5-10 dollars each. 10 if you wanted a double pair. Many people bought them and they were sold to people all over the area. Fast forward to about 1985. Im in the landscape tree business and we are on alot of properties, I was giving an estimate for a rather large job for one of my clients who had just bought a house and wanted to re landscape. as we were clearing out an area by an old pool I came upon a set of 2 decent yankee stadium box seat chairs. I was excited! I asked my client what she wanted to do with them and she said they are yours if you want them I couldnt get my men fast enough to load them into the truck. They were decent but a little rough. Well after the excitement wore off they sat in my shop for 20+ years. Problem was they were peeling ,one of the slats was broken and they were just not something you would want to sit in. One day my oldest son asked me about the seats and it got me to thinking about finally fixing them. Biggest problem was that slat,it was curved. I called every one of the seat restorers on line and no one would sell me a curved slat. (I dont think they had one) I finally was able to get a local wood shop to make me some of the slats and the project began! I called one person who does restore these seats and what he told me was to leave as much of the old paint as possible( The original paint was called sea foam green) and to get the original paint match color. (Yankee stadium blue) A sherwin williams paint #. (Still in use). We took them all apart and cleaned them.I used all the original bolts, was lucky enough that they were still good. Well it turned out to be a great project and I do have some pics. I will put them in to 2 posts as they all dont fit. The seats came out great and I have asked many who have sat in them to tell me which is the replaced slat and not one has got it right. I guess in my case I would restore them and if I had to do it again I would probably do it again!

. Had a 1961 Chevy Impala. Sea foam green. LOL. Have some Briggs/Tiger Stadium seats original. Joe

[sschauer]

Thanks for the replies I've decided to split them up into 2 double seats and restore them. Now any great site that lists the exact paint color per seat? I've heard the red seats were Chinese red but what about the green?

[russyurk]

I struggled with the same question on my Tiger Stadium turnstile. All of the Tiger Stadium stuff sat outside for about seven years prior to the auction and a lot was in bad shape. I was really torn and talked to many people and ultimately refinished it. The main reasons were that is was in bad shape, the pictures below don’t really do justice on how bad it was. The paint was peeling and would fall off with the slightest movement and with a young son and was concerned about lead paint. You can see the original green and at least two coats of orange. I own an air compressor and was going to spray paint it but came to the same conclusion as Jim VB that it would have been too nice. When it was time for paint, I'm sure they sent Johnny Maintenance guy down to the hardware store and he slapped it on with a brush. The oranges were definitely two different shades so I found what I thought was a good match that would maintain the integrity of the item. I made sure to leave some of the original green showing on the underside just like I found it and also reapplied the same number. I'm glad I did it, it’s much more pleasing to the eye refinished.

[Yankeedoodledon]

I have just purchased two Yankee Stadium wood curved back seats, rear mounted with the stanchions. I found two Pat. No's on the cast iron stanchions that were both issued to American Seating Co., Grand Rapids, MI.-one Pat. No. on 4/5/38 and one on 6/17/41. There are also three other numbers on the stanchions-3400R, 340-R4 and 19L on the left stanchion and 19R on the right stanchion. Everything was originally painted the sea green with the blue over it. Can anyone give me any additional information on these seats, like when they would have been installed in the stadium and where they would have been placed? Thank you.

Yankeedoodledon

[Simmons Nation]

hi guys,
i agree with what's been said here... i have seats both restored and unrestored and my personal decision is totally based on the condition of the seat. if it looks cool unrestored... then i leave it unrestored. attached are pics of an 1909 ribbon arm seat from shibe park. i picked it up for a steal on craig's list, but it was in HORRENDOUS shape. the guy i bought it from was at the last game in 1970 and personaly ripped it out of the stadium. he then let it sit in his garage for the next 40 years! the picture doesn't do it justice, it looked terrible. it didn't display well and looked like garbage... so i spent 4 months restoring it and stripping 60 layers of paint and even had to get a blacksmith to straighten out one of the legs. but the end result displays beautifully

[sschauer]

Been so long forgot about this but I did restore them and was a very fun project and turned out great. I made a website that showed my step by step process with before and after pictures here http://4192cards.info/index_files/crosley.htm Here's the final product

[jcmtiger]

Here are some seats from Briggs/Tiger Stadium. The double was obtained in the 1970's when they were refurbishing the Stadium. The single was from a garage sale in the 1980's. The only thing I added was some boards on the bottom of the double for a more sturdy seat.

Joe

[Tomman1961]

Thanks to BatsBallBases, leading me to the correct paint color of my Yankee Stadium seats.
I picked up 3 attached Yankee seats. Free is a nice price to pay. Not only was 33% of the wood rotted, some castings were broken.They were disgusting!
I let them sit in my parents basement a few years. When My Dad retired and he had the time to restore them for me,(1990?) we came to the conclusion the only thing we could do was to make 3 into 2. Over 20 years later, I still belive that was the best decision thing to do. Someplace up here you may find my pictures of the 3 before-and the 2 after. Thing is, if the castings were good, I would have asked my dad to see if he could do the wood. But we had nothing to attached it to-the casting sides were that bad.
Whoever did BatsBallsBases wood slats is the way to go.
Paint-well,Maybe I should not have sanded them all down to bare wood. But I did.Again B-B-B told me the color codes, and I thank him once again.

[batsballsbases]

Tomman1961,
My pleasure! Im glad it all worked out for you. Its such a sad thing to leave them the way they were. Its always the burning question to restore them or leave them the way they were. To me (My opinion) its a no brainer! The sea foam Green seems to stand up better than the blue paint did. Peeling is the major issue. Always reminded me of pig pen on charlie brown. Every time you moved them blue paint flakes were all over the place. My wife would never allow me to ever put them in the house the way they looked! Remember the stadium crew would slap coats of paint all over them all the time so in my eyes isnt that a form of restoration ? To me I left as much of the origional paint underneath as I could and re used all the orig. Hardware. Like Russyurk
on the turnstile to me it looks much nicer now that it did leaving it alone.Looks to me like he matched every detail! Great job. Now its a source of pride not an eyesore!

[Bpm0014]

Here are my seats from Forbes Field. Cool story... I used to do landscaping in high school. One of the houses we did was the guy who owned (or worked for?) the company that tore down Forbes Field. One day he allowed me access to take whatever I wanted. I grabbed 2 full seats and later (rather amateurishly) restored them myself. Didn't turn out toooo bad, but one day I'd like to restore them properly. Always cool to think that someone actually sat in these seats and watched the 1909 World Series between Cobb and Wagner....

[PhilNap]

My just completed project

[thekingofclout]

They look terrific, Phil. Where you gonna put 'em?

[Fuddjcal]

Originally Posted by Fuddjcal

Would anyone have any opinions on what to do with Original Dodger Stadium seats? There is no wood or seat with them, but are just the original brackets finished with very little rust. They were "borrowed" from Dodger Stadium during the original construction and have been stored for 50 years in a crawlspace. I have about 20 seats worth of these originals and would love to do something with them. Thanks

Being that I chimed in a couple of years ago on this, a friend picked everything up a few months back and put these together for me...Thanks Mike! Mine are used for guests in my office. We still have a couple pairs left that are not accounted for, If anyone is interested you can PM me.

Great job by everyone with the restores!!!