VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - GENERAL Body - Sheet Metal, Paint & Wood recolor '37 hubcaps and grill emblem

Hello Everyone,

I may have asked this question a while ago........this is part 2

For those of you who have done a lot of your own restoration work, have any of you recolored the hubcaps and grill emblem and trunk emblem??

I already have the paint (this is part 2) but would like to know what size brush you may have used. What little I know is that pin striping brushes have different widths and lengths.

Did you use any of these or some other type of brush / size ??

The blue on the radiator emblem on my '28 was chipped in a couple of spots, so I found a color match enamel ('Royal Blue' at Michaels) and used a toothpick to gently drop paint into the cracked area. Using the toothpick, I avoided overbrush problems.

It worked very well. Unless you really scrutinize the emblem, you can't tell that the blue area was repainted in spots.

Cheers, Dean

I just used little artists brushes but I don't remember what size. I have done it on all 3 of my cars. I think I just picked a brush that looked like it would work.

Well I was an art teacher for many years. You use what works best. Most Chev badges, hubcaps etc feature a depression in a chromed metal surface. On my 38 I masked the area up as well as possible and sprayed a few light coats of colour and let it settle. I then took a piece of cotton cloth folded over several times and lightly dipped thinner onto it. I then wiped the excess overspray off. If it left a thin residue that is fine. You leave the paint to dry completely and then polish. What is important is that the folded cloth must present as a stiff wad and not be wet so that it would flow into the paint.
You could also simply brush it in but you need a sable brush that will carry the paint and lay it down. You need to try different sizes according to what you are painting. If your hand is steady enough you may be able to do it in one go though you can always come back with the cloth as above. The nice thing is that if you muck it up you just wipe and try again.

Thank you all for your input.

Terry, is the sable brush you mention an artists brush or a pin stripers brush??

Did you guys use isopropyl alcohol or acetone to clean the metal and remove the old paint ??

Grill Emblem....


Hub Cap


Trunk Emblem........as you can see the paint on the trunk lid is bad.



Hoping to sell my '82 Camaro drag car, home made double axle trailer and a bunch of parts to finance the repaint of the front fenders, running boards, rear fenders and trunk lid.

There are generally two types of brushes; Fitch and Artist. Fitch is square, Artist runs to a point. A pin striping brush is merely an artists brush of the required thickness. Some brushes are coarse like hogs hair, some are softer horse hair and the best are sable. I would buy a set of artist's brushes and experiment. You may have to thin the paint down to get it to flow. Looking at the hubcaps which is an easy starting point I would start with trying spray painting and brush stroking. There is no immediate solution; it's all about practising.

I used model brushes on my emblems and hubcaps. I did tape off the emblems. The hubcaps I just used a brush and some cleaner.

Hobby lobby has all kinds of brushes low prices..and if you screw up erase and start over.. No worries makes a great winter kitchen table project..

Hello blue38,

I tried different size artists brushes but settled on a long thin tip brush that is listed as a script brush.

I should probably replace the hub caps because they are pretty rough but the paint is cheaper than a set of new hub caps.

Here is my first attempt with the hub cap......



The grill emblem looks pretty good......The trunk emblem I painted because it was pretty rough looking. I may try to high light the bow tie and the Chevrolet script in blue. I'll check with Hobby Lobby about their brushes.



The hard part.......was the light reflecting off the chrome.....damn.

Just keep repeating...I own a chevy..I am not an Artist. looks Good

Thank you!
Now i know how to recolor the emblems of my 37 car.

Tino

Hello 37Freak,

The grill emblem I have seen painted in the Filling Station catalog and in a few on-line sites. So I used those as guides. But the trunk emblem I was not able to find in a painted condition and because mine is rough looking, I decided to paint it.

I'm sure others will tell you, as will I, the trunk emblem is plain.

Hey, I think that you did very well with the hub cap etc.

What I now wonder is how all these emblems and hub caps were painted in the factory at GMH? was it done by hand or sprayed using many special masking jigs?

With millions of cars a year being produced what was the manufacturing secret?

Peter

I would say some kind of maskng jig or stensel. Once in a while youe would find one with the painting off a little.
Chevrolet did not make all the hub caps. Some hub caps are stamped BLC on the back. Others were probably made by some other supplier. Some of the accessory wheel covers and trim rings were made by Lyon.