Want to know what the opposite of fun is? Removing paint from door hinges! Seriously, this was a mundane project but as always, the effort was worth it in the end.
I can’t blame anyone but myself for these painted hinges, as I’m the one who does all the painting in our house. No excuse other than my being lazy and not applying painter’s tape when painting the doors. However, I’ve fixed that now and learned my lesson. Here is what I was starting with. Yikes, that’s embarrassing.
I fully expected this to be a nightmare project but it really wasn’t. Boring yes, hard no. It also went much quicker than I imagined it would.
What You Will Need:
Brillo Pad
Screwdriver
Gloves
Needlenose Pliers
Heat-protected surface
How To Remove Paint From Hinges:
I had no intention on taking all the doors off completely, so I removed one hinge per door at a time so I wouldn’t have to. I started with the center hinges on each door and when those were all done, I moved to the upper hinges, and lastly the lower.
Because I set this up right in my kitchen, I placed my pizza baking stone on the counter to protect it and covered that with wax paper.
Once you have the hinge off, place it on your protected surface. While wearing gloves, I used my heat gun to loosen up the dried on paint. I held the hinge in place with my needlenose pliers. I also used the pliers to flip it over so I could heat up the other side as well.
After heating it up for approximately 2 minutes, I placed the hinge in my sink (still wearing gloves, it will be HOT) and scrubbed it with my brillo pad. This got most of the paint off. For the residual, I scraped some with a flathead screwdriver, but I didn’t make myself crazy with it because part 2 of my plan would cover that up.
After washing it, the hinge will be cool enough to touch. I used two shades of Rub n Buff to refinish my now clean hinges. I wanted them to match my new doorknobs as closely as possible.
First I rubbed on a light coating of black Rub N Buff*. Once that was dried, I went over it with antique gold. I used a small artist’s paintbrush to get into the crevices. Here you can see one side with only the black and the other side is covered up with the gold.
Once that side was dry, I flipped it over and did the other side as well. It was pretty simple really, just a tiny bit time-consuming.
I’ve read other how-to guides on removing paint from hinges, one of which said to put the hinges into a pot of boiling water. I didn’t want to use my cooking pots for that, but I did try soaking them in a bowl of steaming water instead of using the heat gun. While that did work to remove some of the paint, when I compared it to the heat gun method, I noticed the heat gun process removed much more of the paint.
If you leave too much residual paint on them, when you apply the Rub N Buff, it will come out bumpy. The more paint you get off, the smoother the end finish will be.
I did all the downstairs hinges in an afternoon. A couple of weeks later I finished up with all the upstairs hinges.
One thing to note is I used that FURNO 500 heat gun on this project, but I noticed they have a new line of heat guns out in their Craft Series. The Studio Precision heat gun would also work well on this as is has a smaller nozzle.
It makes a big difference, doesn’t it?
Repeat after me, I will not paint my hinges. I will not paint my hinges.
Thank you to all that took the time to vote in the Wagner Design Challenge. My kitchen nook makeover received the most votes! I really appreciate all the love I received on that!
This post was in partnership with Wagner, all opinions are 100% my own, you can read my full disclosure here. *May contain affiliate links.
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