A DETAIL ENTHUSIAST
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact

Categories

All
1953 Healey BN1 Restoration
1964 MGB Mk1 Restoration
Austin Healey Upholstery
Classic Auto Upholstery
Model Aircraft
Model Cars
Model Railway

Colour and finish,

7/28/2019

2 Comments

 
Picture
It's been about a month since my last post, with summer in full swing i just haven't had the time to write between all the camping and outdoor adventures. However as always I have been keeping busy with lots of car stuff!
I did write and present a slide show presentation a few weeks ago for the Old English Car Club at their monthly meeting, I've also just been published for the second time this year in another magazine - this time, Healey Marque magazine - which I was featured on the front cover!
 
Over the past weeks the guys at Jetstream have begun sandblasting my BN1 chassis. But just before they did I got some good pics of the original Healey blue paint they uncovered after giving the chassis a pressure wash to remove all the years of dirt and grime:
Picture
Picture
Check out this Healey blue paint - yes it did have a very faint metallic in it! though it's pretty faded in these pics. Also note the black primer underneath and the areas that the blue paint didn't reach as the body & chassis were clearly sprayed AFTER it was assembled...
Picture
Picture
Picture
Here are some of the underside areas, and note the factory undercoating applied just over and behind the rear axle area...
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
In the meantime I've begun the process of refinishing all of the bags of original hardware for the car. I had the guys at 'Blast-it' carefully sandblast everything - bag by bag to bare metal. Now I have to go through and re-plate everything in either zinc or black phosphate as original.
For the zinc parts I have a home electro-plating system I purchased from the Eastwood Company: A battery is hooked up to a bar of pure zinc submerged in an electrolyte solution. The other battery lead hooks to a small metal colander/spoon that I put the hardware in. When I submerge the hardware into the electrolyte solution, it bubbles and foams for 5-10min and then voila! the parts are now plated in zinc! I then rinse them in water, dry them thoroughly and spray them with a clear coat to seal them and add an extra layer of protection.
Picture
- I'll be saving the black phosphate plating process for a future article, I still have to learn and experiment to get that process right, but I have a great article with good instructions in it written by my friend Curt Arndt. - so stay tuned -

Here's some freshly plated and painted parts for the bonnet latch mechanism, complete with the red stripe painted on the black latch spring as original. The longer bracket and the latch pin are listed as being bare steel in the concours guidelines, so I sealed them with clear coat and gave them a wipe with some Fluid Film to prevent corrosion:
Picture
I sandblasted, rebuilt and painted my engine mounts with new rubber blocks from AH Spares. As with most re-pro parts the new rubber blocks needed some coaxing to fit properly!
Picture
Picture
I carefully hand painted in the black lettering on these chassis ID plates, the new white plastic plate which mounts to the R/H interior kick panel will still need to have the chassis and engine numbers stamped into it...
Picture
Picture
I also cleaned and refinished the flasher and overdrive relays for the firewall. These pieces are all original and date coded for 12/53.
I wanted to figure out how to clean and refinish the flasher body without losing the already fading black lettering on it. So I ended up using a .000 size model paint brush with some thinned aluminum colour paint, I carefully painted aluminum around the actual letters and then retouched the lettering in with a .000 size black artists pen -  of course this took a LOT of patients! A final spray of satin dull coat to blend it all together and you'd never know it was painted!
Picture
Picture
The wall of parts staging is looking shiner all the time!
Picture
Picture
until next time -
2 Comments
Lyn
7/29/2019 08:09:47 am

You are a master craftsman! Thanks for sharing your gift with everyone

Reply
Tabitha Levine link
6/18/2022 08:07:54 pm

Thank you for writinng this

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Need Upholstery? Click Here!

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    December 2023
    August 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    August 2022
    June 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact