rejuviation of a griege side shell chair with unwanted vinyl  

NOTE: please wear gloves and ...
NOTE: please wear gloves and respirator if you do this. i was lucky to also have access to a down draft table to limit the dust but take cation when doing this. fiberglass in the lungs is not good
PHOTO 1 and 2
so i started sanding and got to tackling the shock mounts. with a 1 inch chisel and dead blow. i knock off the excess squeeze out so i could see the original shock mount outline circle and measured and made a center mark with a sharpie. then a small countersink bit lightly marked the center point so when i sanded everything off i wouldn't have to start from scratch locating everything
Photo 3
since this is a vinyl chair i have 3 holes that they drilled to let air out. i also gave it a countersink treatment on both side in preparation of epoxy. i will go into detail of how i am going to color the epoxy tomorrow.

on the front where all the...
on the front where all the foam was i first used a hand held steel bristle brush like you use for cleaning welds and then started at 40 and went to 80, 120, 180, 240, 320, 400 and 600
the back i just started at 240 and went to 400 and 600. no need to go to crazy
the whole process of sanding took a little less than 2 hours as i used a 3m air powered orbital sanded with unlimited air.
photo 1
so after removing the old foam foam label, i sanded the old shock mount material off, leaving just my center marking and taking care sanding around the Herman Miller label and both the HM logo and the Cincinnati star and c logo
photo 2 and 3
and the front, one image wet with water and other dry.
tomorrow i will start to final steps but i still need to order the shock mounts

Thanks for sharing. I...
Thanks for sharing. I greatly enjoy this sort of post.
Incidentally, it sounds like you have an epoxy coloring plan for filling the holes, but I will mention that I've used epoxy colorant before, so it would just be a question of trial and error mixing to get the right final color. E.g:
http://www.defusco.com/glues-epoxy-polyester-etc/coloring-kits

I am going to be using pastel...
I am going to be using pastel pigment from dick blick art store that is ground up and just mix into expoy. The color already matches

That's a whole lot of work...
With very little return.
But if you've got the time I applaud you.

Glad to hear you've got a per...
Glad to hear you've got a perfect color match! That is the most important thing.
Looking forward to seeing today's posts.

I think the results are and...
I think the results are and will be worth about the total 3 hours of labor it will have consumed. The chair was hardly presentable as it was and now its much nicer and not blue anymore
This week I am also going to be reveneering a 2001 DCM that I picked up for dirt cheap as it had drilled out backrest and ripped veneer. And will be posting that up to show the vacume bag process and etc.

Just curiosity question...
Just curiosity question about the color matching. Why didn't you simply "keep" the dust from sanding your chair and than mix it with transparent epoxy. It should give the ORIGINAL color. Correct me please if Im wrong.
Another question: did you treat the chair after sanding with Penetrol or other similar color conditioner? The effect is amazing.
Wanna see final effect with filled holes.

there is a video of a UK...
there is a video of a UK company showing how to repair a missing chunk on shell chairs using the dust and I wasn't to impressed. The color wasn't as powerful and vibrant as it need to be as it has a more muttled white appearance
Being a recent art student (industrial design) I have a lot of materials just sitting around that I was gonna try before buying something
So my first attempt at matching the color I used oil pastel dust to mix into the epoxy. That didn't turn out to well as it darkened trendmendusly and was chunky.
The 2nd more lazy attempt to match the color Was with ground up prismacolor color pencil. This was a bad idea as well since it didn't really mix and was more just "suspended" in the epoxy.
So for the 3rd and final attempt I went out and bought oil paint that was pretty close and mixed black oil paint I had to match the color closer
Yes. I used penetrol to coat the chairs after I sanded and epoxied. The pictures are after it was applied

Well done!
Well done!