Everything we have written, grouped by service. These are the guides behind the work: what the process actually involves, what drives cost, and how to decide between restoring and replacing.
Outdoor furniture restoration
- Can a discontinued Brown Jordan set still be restored?Usually, yes. Discontinued affects what the manufacturer will sell you, not what can be rebuilt. If the frame is straight and the welds are sound we strip it, match the color from a protected area such as under a rail rather than the sun-faded outside, and re-sling it to the frame's own template. The honest limits: proprietary glides, end caps and clips can be hard to source, and Brown Jordan's multi-step antiqued finishes cannot be reproduced exactly in a single powder.
- Do I have to get the furniture to you?No, we come to you. We collect around 95% of furniture jobs ourselves and deliver them back, anywhere within 150 miles of Concord, which reaches well past the Bay Area into Sacramento and the Central Valley. It is not only convenience: a dining set or a row of chaises is easy to damage in transit, and a frame that arrives bent has become a repair job before it is a restoration job.
- How much does patio furniture restoration cost?Restoring a sound set costs a fraction of replacing it, where a comparable premium set runs $20,000 and up. We quote after inspection rather than publishing a price list, because the things that move the number are not visible in a photo: hidden corrosion inside the tubing, how many pieces there are, whether the finish needs stripping completely, and whether slings are in scope. Send photos to start and you get a real figure, not a range that changes later.
- Is an old Tropitone set worth restoring?Usually yes, and for a structural reason rather than a sentimental one. These are commercial-grade extruded and cast aluminum frames built for hotel and resort duty, and the frame is the expensive part to manufacture. When a set looks tired it is normally the finish that has gone and not the metal, which is the cheapest possible thing to be wrong with it. Set against $20,000 and up to replace like for like, that math usually favors restoring.
- My slings have gone. Can they be replaced without buying new chairs?Yes, and it is a common job on its own without refinishing the frame. A sling is one tensioned panel of fabric. Straps are separate vinyl strips. They are different systems that fail differently, and a replacement has to match your frame's channel and tension rather than just fill the opening, or the seat sits wrong and tears early. We use Sunbrella for fabric, and if you have PVC straps you get PVC straps back.
- My wrought iron is rusty. Is it too far gone?It depends on depth, and depth is not always visible while the old paint is still on. Surface rust is prep work and comes off in blasting. Rust that has eaten through the wall is structural, and coating over it hides it for a season and no longer. In between sits pitting that has thinned the metal, and rust inside hollow tube, which is the one that catches people out because blasting only cleans the outside. We give you our best read at inspection, and if stripping changes the picture we stop and call you before spending more of your money.
- Should I restore or replace aluminum patio furniture?Restore, in most cases. Aluminum does not rust. It forms a thin oxide skin that protects the metal underneath, which is why forty-year-old frames are still standing. The chalky white bloom and flat patchy look is the old coating breaking down in UV, which is a surface problem with a surface fix. We check two things before saying yes: aluminum pits, and it corrodes hard wherever a steel screw or fastener meets it, and cast joints can crack. If the castings and welds are sound, the expensive part of that set is still intact.
- What actually happens to my furniture after you collect it?Strip the old coating, blast the bare metal, powder coat, reassemble and re-sling. The two prep stages take the longest, because everything that decides how long the new finish lasts happens before any color goes on. One thing worth knowing before collection day: the parts go through a cure oven at around 400F, so glass tops, cushions and anything plastic come off first and are not part of the job.
Powder coating
- Can you handle repeat production runs?Yes. Batch work for fabricators and manufacturers is a standing part of the shop. What matters on a repeat run is documented consistency: how parts are racked so coverage is even and rack contact points fall somewhere harmless, film thickness checked on a gauge rather than by eye, powder batch numbers recorded, and a retained first-off sample so the fiftieth part and the next delivery both match it. Send a drawing or spec and we will come back with batch pricing and lead time.
- Can you match my existing color?Close, and usually very close, but worth understanding why not always exact. Powder is a dry material, so unlike liquid paint it cannot be tinted or mixed to a shade. We match to a physical chip from our suppliers' ranges or the nearest standard reference, taking that reference from a protected part of the piece. If nothing in stock is near enough, a custom batch can be ordered, with a minimum quantity and a lead time. On finish: matte and texture hide minor surface imperfection, high gloss shows every one, which matters on a frame that has been repaired.
- Is powder coating better than repainting railings and gates?For exterior metalwork, yes, and the difference is physical rather than marketing. Wet paint is pigment in solvent that evaporates and leaves a thin film, typically one to two thousandths of an inch. Powder is sprayed on dry and then baked, and in the oven it melts and cross-links into a continuous layer two to four thousandths thick. Roughly double the thickness and no solvent pinholes, which is why railings get repainted every few years and powder coated once. One constraint to plan for: we do not offer removal or reinstallation, so items need to come to the shop off the property.
- Which finish do I actually need?Powder coating for anything outdoors or handled hard, because it is the thickest and most impact-resistant of the three. Cerakote where a part runs genuinely hot or has tight tolerances to hold, because it goes on far thinner. Refinishing where the existing surface is still sound and only the top layer has failed. If you are between two of those, this is the page that walks through where each one stops making sense.
- Why did my last powder coating peel?Because the coating can only be as good as what it is gripping. Old coating is stripped, then the metal is blasted so the surface is microscopically rough, like a very fine sandpaper texture, which is what the powder holds on to. On a smooth surface it has nothing to grip and it will lift and flake early no matter how good the powder was. On steel a chemical pretreatment goes on after that, which is what stops corrosion creeping back from a scratch two years later. Prep is the difference between a finish that lasts years and one that fails in a season.
Wheel coating
- What is a BAR license?BAR is the California Bureau of Automotive Repair, the state body that licenses and regulates auto repair facilities. A shop must be BAR-licensed and insured to legally take your whole vehicle in for work. Finish Logic is BAR-licensed, which is why you can drop off the car and not just the wheels.
- What does vehicle drop-off actually mean?You bring the whole car and we handle every step in-house: the car stored indoors, wheels off the car, tires off the wheels, strip to bare metal, factory refinish, tires back on, balanced, back on the car. Most shops only accept bare wheels; vehicle drop-off is the full-service version.
- Can a bent or cracked wheel be saved?Often, though not always. Bends and cracks are repairable up to a point, and any repair happens before coating rather than after, because the heat and the blasting will find a weak repair. Forged and heat-treated wheels also have a limit on how much oven time they can take before the temper is affected, which is part of the assessment. Some wheels are past what we will put our name to, and we say so at inspection rather than after taking the job.
- How does wheel coating actually work, in full?The complete guide: stripping, blasting, outgassing, curing, what is repairable, what the two-week turnaround covers, and every question we hear at the counter. Start here if you want the whole picture rather than the short answers above.
- Is my wheel damage cosmetic or structural?Rash and fading on the face and lip are cosmetic, and refinishing fixes them properly. Two things change that answer. If the damage runs into the bead seat, the sealing surface where the tire meets the wheel, it can leak air and needs assessing rather than simply coating. And cracks, bends or buckling are structural, which is a different job. We check the bead seat and the back of the wheel with the tire off before quoting, because that is the only place the real answer lives.
- What happens to my wheels, and how long will they take?Tires off, strip, blast, outgas, coat, cure, tires back on. Around two weeks is standard. Pricing starts at $175 per wheel bare, $200 per wheel with tires, and $225 per wheel if you drop the car off. The outgassing stage is the one people are not expecting: cast alloy is porous and holds moisture and oils that boil out through molten powder in the oven and leave craters, so it is driven out with heat first. One thing to know up front: if your wheels have a machined or diamond-cut face, that bright bare-metal look cannot be recreated, because powder is opaque.
Cerakote
- Can I get Cerakote done in Concord?We apply the Type C air-cure series at the Concord shop, and parts can be dropped off in person or shipped in. Air-cure is the relevant detail: it does not need oven temperatures, which is often the exact reason a part needs Cerakote rather than powder. To be straight with you, we are not on Cerakote's certified applicator list. Judge us on the things that actually decide a finish instead: how we prep, which series we run, and the 2-year warranty that covers the work.
- Cerakote or powder coating: which do I need?Cerakote goes on very thin and tolerates far higher temperatures. Powder goes on several times thicker and gives better impact and abrasion resistance. The decision is usually about heat and clearance rather than looks: exhaust manifolds, headers and turbo housings run hotter than any powder will survive, so they point to Cerakote. Patio furniture, railings, wheels and brake calipers are all normally powder coated, because thickness and toughness matter more there than heat resistance does.
- How do I tell a good Cerakote shop from a bad one?Ask three questions: how do you prep, which series do you run, and what does the warranty actually cover. Prep is the honest tell, because the finish is only ever as good as the preparation under it, and a shop that will not describe its stripping and blasting in detail is usually a shop that rushes it. Series matters because the air-cure and oven-cure lines suit different parts. And a warranty is worth only as much as its stated scope, so get that in writing rather than as a verbal reassurance.