How to fix painted over door hinges
Layers of old paint make door hinges squeak constantly, look rough, and block lubricants like WD-40. While the thick paint can make hinges appear permanently integrated into the door frame, replacing them with new ones is actually an easy and inexpensive fix.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Stripping paint off the hinges using a razor blade, hammer to chip paint, or paint stripper
- 2Replacing pins and using lithium grease instead of WD40
- 3Replacing just the door-side part of the hinge
- 4Replacing the hinges entirely rather than trying to clean them
- 5Removing the hinges to simmer them in an old crock pot with water and dish soap
- 6Rubbing the hinges with Brasso on a soft towel
- 7Simmering the hardware in ammonia and scrubbing the paint off
- 8Removing and cleaning one hinge at a time to avoid having to take the entire heavy door off its frame
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“A lot of my door hinges look like pic 1 and 2. How can I get them to look like pic 3? Is it a lost cause and should I just replace them? Thanks!”source ↗
“Do you think it will get rid of that discoloration (the little blackish areas) as well, aside from the paint?”source ↗
“We replaced all the hinges when I bought my condo. It was pretty easy and not expensive.”source ↗
“The rough ones are in my kitchen I see them all day long because the door is always open position. The rest I can live with.”source ↗
“Some dummy before I bought this place painted over these door hinges. They squeak a ton and are difficult to maintain/WD40.”source ↗
“I was thinking of trying to replace them but it seems that one side of each of the hinges is integrated into the door frame?”source ↗