Reupholstering Erik Buch chairs  

If you can source new ones, I‘d opt for the latter. You can surely try and heat the glue and work the plugs out with a screwdriver or a chisel or something but that’s quite the effort.  

@herringbone: Many thanks. Good idea with the heat. 

In the past, I’ve had good success using pliers with metal teeth along with a rubber band of reasonable thickness. Use the rubber band to cushion the plug head from damage, and the combo of tacky rubber and plier grip/twist can remove most button-head plugs.

@cdsilva: Alright, many thanks for that advise. That looks like that could work. 

A sharp box cutter blade on its flat against the wood and gently edge the blade int the plug and slightly gently lift, then change to the other side or in three different positions around the plug, works nearly every time if you have enough protruding. also if you are going to strip and sand the chair you can add a stripper to the area then wrap it in tinfoil to seal the vapours in for half an hour or so, the glue should have lost its strength.

hope that helps Dave

@dcnz: Thank you Dave! I will try different methods. 

That was always how I did it back in the day except I used a safety razor blade.  If you keep it flat against the chair frame, it will leave only the lightest of marks on the wood and they usually disappear with oiling.

The plugs are well worth the effort to save since they're next to impossible to find made of teak in metric sizes like the originals.  Or used to be next to impossible to find, anyway...maybe the situation has improved since I last looked several years ago. 

@spanky: Hi, still didn't started to reupholster those chairs, but certainly will after the summer brake. Thank you for your advices, that all sounds very practicle. I will try to comment my efforts by then.