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News: Email didnt work
My web hosts screwed up and any email you sent on these links never got to me, which may explain why I got nothing at all! Anyhow they seem to have fixed it so if you have anything to add to these pages, please send it again.AMC Cinema Chair Info
If you're reading this then you probably bought some ex-AMC cinema chairs on eBay. I thought I'd share my experiences and information about these chairs in case it might be helpful to others.I bought ten chairs, to make two rows of five. My media room has a concrete floor so we had to first construct a two-level stage to mount the chairs on. I'll spare you the details of that for a later time. The chairs themselves were in pretty good condition, except for the feet, which were all rusted to various levels, and a few of the cupholders were a bit damaged.
Refurbishment
There were two obvious area in need of attention: the feet (all of which were rusty) and the area where the bases join the legs (which is where years of popcorn and other foodstuffs seem to end up). A few chairs were almost pristine in this area, they must have been located in unpopular areas of the theater I guess. We decided to remove the rust and goo, then repaint all the metalwork. Here's how we did it:- Where necessary gouged out the foodstuffs from the joints with a screwdriver
- Used a drill with a wire wheel brush to grind off the rust from the bases and the joint areas
- Cleaned up the result, and the chair bases with Formula 409
- Cleaned the fabric side of the backs with Formula 409 to remove years of grime and dust
- Once a source for new cupholders was found, drilled a small hole in the round plastic plugs in them, levered them out with an allen key, then unscrewed all of the cupholders
- Unscrewed wooden panels from end legs
- Masked the cushions with plastic and masking tape
- Sprayed all metalwork with Rust-oleum Red Primer (7569)
- Sprayed all metalwork with Painters Touch Rose Gloss (1963). This is not a perfect color match with the original, but it is close enough for me
- TODO: Clean up rear of backs (Formula 409 doesn't do much, need to find something else)
- TODO: Steam clean fabric bases and backs
- TODO: Reassemble new cupholders
- TODO: Reassemble seats onto stage
- Two Center legs
- One replacement wooden panel for a LeftEnd (or RightEnd, they seem identical)
- Anyone know which AMC they came from and how old they are?
- 10 cupholders (round plastic plugs have been drilled out)
- One Left leg (has been refurbished as described and cupholder is intact)
Manufacturer Info
The web is a wonderful thing. It took about ten minutes of serious surfing to find the manufacturers of our anonymous chairs.The chairs turn out to be Irwin Citations (I don't know the exact part # or color specifics yet). You can see them on their web site. They look a little different to ours thanks to the different color, cup holders and style, but if you look closely at the larger picture, the design of the backs confirms it.
The cupholders come from CY Young, they are model C-5 and you can see them on their web site. If you want replacement cupholders (without the AMC logo) they are around $6 apiece.
Parts
I don't know what the different parts are officially called, so I have made up names to keep things straight.
[viewed from the front] From the left I call these LeftEnd, Left, Center, Right, (and RightEnd not shown as I don't have one).
Andy Wants
Andy Doesnt Need
More Info
Do you have any more information that might be useful to your fellow chair owners? Need help with something? Drop me an email and I'll add it to this page.ControlAV is a trademark of Andy Pennell.