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While visiting our daughter in North Carolina, we ran across someone who had
a vintage 6-player croquet set for sale for just a few dollars. As the photos below
show, it has been completely restored. All components (except the balls) were stripped down to bare
wood or metal, sanded, primed, and then painted with four coats of enamel spray paint
for color areas and three coats of polyurethane clear on the natural finish
portions. The balls would have been too difficult to get to bare wood, so I
sanded down to the point where the paint was stable and strongly adhered to the
underlying wood. The two end pegs were fabricated from new wood because there
was only one original and I wanted them to look alike (same size and color
pattern as original).
The finished croquet set
looks amazing. An Internet search on this particular set did not turn up an
exact match for the paint scheme, and is seem like there was quite a wide
variety of placements and numbers of color rings. The wheeled cart appears to be
fairly rare on this set. There is not manufacturer
name on it, but it looks like the South Bend variety sold in the 1960s and
1970s. I did all the work myself, and spent way too much time on it, especially
since we ended up selling the set before playing even one game on it.
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Melanie holds a yardstick next to the restored 6-player South
Bend croquet set.
Left-front view of restored South Bend 6-player croquet set.
Rear view of South Bend 6-player croquet set before
restoration.
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Paint has been stripped from all wood and metal parts.
Right-rear view of restored South Bend 6-player croquet set.
Left-front view of South Bend 6-player croquet set before
restoration.
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Posted August 23, 2019
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