VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1937-1945 Paint colors 1938 Dash

Here are the pictures from jmmmn37

Wow very,very nice!!!

Looks good, Jim!

The interior paint looks great. Did you paint everything with cans or a compressor also? The prior owner painted the interior of my 38 kind of burgundy to complement the exterior color, but I don't like it and would like to return her back to original colors. Thank you for sharing
Michael

Very nice job Jim! Tiny, back of the mirror in your picture looks like what the garnish moldings should look like….greyish grain Primavera finish…Billu38

The frames look like they are a wood grain pattern. NICE

Has anyone tried this company, looks good and maybe the florida company mentioned earlier is this one.
Michael

What are you looking to get done Michael?

I'm prepping my 1938 Coupe garnish moldings, mirror and windshield divider so that I can woodgrain them myself. I have several sets to do for friends as well and I don't think it will be hard with some experimentation. With a few sets to do, hoping to share cost of tools/materials between people so mine ends up costing just my time and I get to help others out and maintain consistency with the original look in a few restored cars.

Hoping to do them over the winter since they are such a discrete project that I can actually finish when surrounded with many, many car parts needing something done to them...

My windshield divider has a really good example of the original graining. It's a tight grain, dark grey-ish colour. Reminds me of a black and white photo of woodgrain with a hint of tan/brown in it. It's obviously changed in 80 years so it's open to interpretation but gives me a good sample to work from.

Unless Canadian was different??? It sure looks and sounds like everything described for 1938 US Chevy as well.

This is good to know. I'm very interested in refinishing all of my interior steel. The prior owner painted my 38 a different color then original black and had the interior done in a gray mohair type of material instead of tan and painted all of the interior a shade off of the exterior. I won't change the upholstery, but will bring the trim back toward original which won't clash with the gray. The prices seem reasonable even for a single job. Less than $400 if I'm not mistaken

Solafide and Canadian Tim,

If you check back on the 3rd page of this post (which dates from October 30, 2015, almost exactly 3 years ago!), you will see pictures posted of the garnish moldings and dash from my 38 coupe. As described in the earlier posts, I did the woodgraining using the kit from Grain-It Technologies in Florida. I confirmed that this color and pattern were accurate--I was lucky enough to see in person a perfectly preserved 1938 sedan with all original woodgraining intact and the color and pattern were virtually the same (given some fading and darkening through age). I also did extensive research and experimentation with interior dash colors and report above what I discovered and used. The woodgraining kits from Grain-It are not cheap, but I haven't seen any results from other sources that resulted in a more accurate job. I dealt with the company several years ago, so I don't know how it's operating currently, but I see their website is still active.

If you are a patient person, with a steady hand and some (even minimal) skill in painting, I believe you can end up with a very fine job, and one that is more like the original than most attempts.

Good luck, and let me know if I can provide further information or help.

Yours,

Jim

Thanks Jmmm...I actually have the original thread printed out on my desk from a few years ago. Didn't realize this was the same one lol. I saved it to source the colours when the time came since you'd already done the legwork.

Not sure but it looks to me like the brown/tan color was cleaned off your samples. If you look at the photos below, there are places where the brown/tan was worn away (areas with some gray) but for the most part the samples still have the brown/tan color.
Brian