Flea Market Flip - Upcycled Rusty Turkey Fryer
$15
3 Hours
Medium
I have a great upcycle for you. Today the rusty legs to this old turkey fryer are getting a major overhaul.
My sister and I found this old turkey fryer at a flea market a few weeks ago. We didn’t even know this community wide yard sale was taking place or we wouldn’t have arrived at noon, long after all the good stuff had gone. At least we assumed there was good stuff. We hadn’t bought anything until we stumbled upon these rusty turkey fryer legs.
When we asked the price we both could have sworn the guy said $50 (he probably said $15), but he quickly lowered the price to $10 when he saw the shocked looks on our faces. Uhhhh, would you take $5? Sold!
The bottom part of the fryer was held on by only 6 welding points. I was just able to fit the grinder in to cut the welds.
The same grinder that I used to cut the welds was also used to clean up all the rust, this time with a sanding disc.
That rust was hiding a lot of nice looking metal. I thought about keeping the raw metal but ended up spray painting the legs black.
From the hardware store, I picked up a 24″ round table top and stained with a walnut stain.
Layered on the chalk paint to get an aged, time worn, finish. First layer of teal, followed by royal blue and finished with a mossy green.
Time to attack the tabletop with a sander. You’re looking to get rid of any hard edge brush strokes…just soften up all the edges.
Finish the tabletop with 2 coats of a vintage wax. On the final coat, I mixed in a couple drops of black chalk paint with the vintage wax. Be careful with the black, a little goes a long way. Paint your wax on and rub off with a rag.
The lower shelf was cut from a piece of discarded tabletop and treated the same way as the top.
For lots more step by step pictures make sure you stop by my blog for this and a couple hundred more DIY's.
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?