VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1937-1945 Mirror Paint '38

I am about to paint the back of the rear view mirror and I cannot remember, or find where I wrote, what color it was supposed to be. It's for a '38 Master and I assume it is the upper dash color, metallic condor gray. But it could be the lower dash color, plover beige.

Thanks,

Brian

Brian,My '39 Master DeLuxe is wood grained.The picture of a '38 M.D. shows wood grain.(they matched the window garnish mouldings).Do you think that your Master was woodgrained?I would guess the it should be what ever the windshield garnish mouldings are.If painted I would go with the darker gray.The 1938 Engineering book lists all the colors except fot the mirror.

It could have been but I remember it being what appeared to be a solid color and it never occured to me at the time I was cleaning it up that it was the color of the frame. I still have some examples of the wood grain and there is a little of the original paint left on the mirror so I should be able to get a match with the help of the sun. (under florescent I can't tell!)

Brian

Well the verdict is..I'm not exactly sure. The color that was left on the mirror is not similar to either the window frame or the two dash colors. I would have expected that if it was the same color as the window frame then it should have been a pretty close match since the mirror would have seen the same conditions as the frame. There was no evidence that the mirror was wood grain but there is not a lot of the original paint left on the thing.

The only really good sample of the original frame color is under the mounting point of the mirror. The other thing is the paint method. The wood grain used a gray primer with a brown and dk green surface color. The mirror has brown primer with dk gray then green/brown. The surface colors are similar and since it was a painted wood grain, and different shops may have made the mirror and the frame, it could be that they looked the same way back when.

Based on what I see it looks like the mirror was most likely painted plover beige.

Brian

Brian,If your a VCCA member why don't you contact the 1938 technical advisor.He has been around for years and had a beautiful 1938 Master.His phone number is even in the G & D T.A. listing......The mirror wood grain on my '39 dosen't match the window garnish moulding wood grain.They were done in a different manor and the base coat under the decal that was used is different.

I just checked my all original '37 coupe and the back of the mirror is woodgrained, although it's a bit coarser (heavier black streaks) than the window frames. Hope that helps.

-Bob

Is this the coupe that is worth a million dollars? :confused:

Aw crap! I can't afford to make a million dollar car! Looks like the wood grains are winning though...

Brian,After the car is all finished it will be long forgotten as to what the mirror looks like.Everyone looks into the back of the mirror but I'll bet 99% of the people could't tell you what the front looks like or if its painted or wood grained.---My '39 still has the government tax stamp on it that was required during WWII.If it wouldn't be for that I wouldn't know what it looks like either :rolleyes:

I called the Tech advisor for '38 and he said that it was wood grained. Evidently the company that made the mirror hired a company to do the wood graining which was a different company than the one that did the window frames. Thus the two don't necessarily match all that well.

I know that no one will ever notice, but I will know it's not right. In a way I am trying to recreate a show room original car so that, even though it was restored, someone could look at this car and know how to restore another car. I even recreated the speaker mounting board above the front window, even though I don't have a speaker to mount there.

There are things I can't do exactly like the original, like the wood graining, but if I restore everything that I know of, it should turn out pretty close to original.

Brian

And the car will be worth a half a million dollars too! :eek: :eek:

Chev Nut: You're absolutely right....I've had my coupe for years and had to actually go and look to see if the back of the mirror was wood grained or not! I'm sure glad I wasn't a contestant on 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' and have that question asked !! :o :o :o

-Bob