Refinishing a cart?

[ardie&sparki]

I've been thinking about sanding down the cart in the middle and staining it like a meadow brook. Or should I just leave it black? Other suggestions have been to add pin stripping to it. The second picture is the mare that will be paired with the cart. Would this set up be appropriate for a country pleasure type class?

 

[SappyAppy]

My cart is similar and currently a much peeling and chipped dark green. I've looked it over with stripping and refinishing the wood in mind carefully. I've done quite a bit of wood refinishing of antiques in the past and the fact is that this is a very daunting job. I decided that it would have to be basically disassembled because every piece of wood on the cart has large bolt assemblies that you couldn't sand nor strip around effectively. In any case, just sanding down the cart wouldn't be the best way to refinish it, you'd need to use stripper to remove all the paint first I think.

I think I've decided to repaint all the wood on mine a color that won't look bad with the dark green metal work, which is a very high quality finish in great shape. Even so I'm facing careful sanding all over every inch of wood to give the new paint something to stick to, partial disassembly, priming, and yeah I'm intimidated! Just the thought of getting the hand sanding right on those wheels....

Good luck whatever you choose, I'm new to driving so can't advise you much but your cart and mare are beautiful!

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

If your carts finish is in good shape I would just leave it black. I can't deny really liking the look of wood but as SappyAppy says it is a herculean undertaking if you want to do it right. Black goes with any colour of horse and your horse/harness/cart looks lovely in the picture.

 

[ardie&sparki]

Okay, thanks very much. I am going to stick with the black. Is it acceptable for AMHR Country Pleasure classes?

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

Well, I hesitate to offer any advice about AMHR classes since I don't actually show AMHR but I would say that yes, it will be fine for any country pleasure class. If you show as far as Nationals then you might want to ask around of others showing at that level but otherwise as long as the rest of your turn out is appropriate the black cart will do nicely.