dash gauge restoration

[Guest Randy Berger]

The gauge and speedometer faces on the 1956 Packard autos had a shiny gold finish on the lettering, numbers and indicators. This gold finish was applied to the BACK of the plastic gauge face, in molded-in indentations. When looking at the gauges/speedo you were looking through the plastic to the gold lettering applied to the BACK of the plastic. This gold finish was bright, like plating, very shiny. Whatever material was used it slowly has been turning green around the edges. Does anyone have suggestions as to how to reproduce this finish?? Paint dries flat, so it won't work. It may have originally been heat-stamped. I'm stumped.

[Guest]

This is a SWAG but could the gold leaf application technique used in picture frame restoration be used?

[Guest]

I tend to agree with BV, you can get gold leaf from fancy pastry shops. they sometimes make wedding cakes with it, maybe they can save you a slice (no pun intended!).

[Guest]

Randy,<BR>Any quality craft supply store should stock the gold foil. I've never tried the process myself, but have seen it performed with good results. It'll take some patience for sure.

[Guest Moepar]

Goofball is right. If you can't find a good craft store, a model shop should be able to help as most have the silver foil & can order the gold if they don't have it in stock. It's easy to apply too.

[Guest Randy Berger]

Thanks guys, but the problem is gold leaf has to be glued (via a special glue) to something so you can look at the shiny (unglued) side. Since you are looking through the plastic to the shiny surface, there is nothing to glue the leaf to. I thought of using watchmakers crystal cement very sparingly and pushing the gold leaf into the grooves and letters in the back of the plastic dial faces. If King-Seeley was still in business they could tell me how the ^%$# they did this.

[Guest]

Randy,Try a sign painter,someone who stripes and letters firetrucks.Sizing is applied first then the leaf then cleared over.

[Guest]

Randy,Try a sign painter,someone who stripes and letters firetrucks.Sizing is applied first then the leaf then cleared over.

[Guest]

I'm in the sign business, and there is a very handy gold-polyester from Arlon that would look great in this case. Just set up the graphics and cut it second surface, so the adhesive side would be against the plastic. Any local sign shop should be able to help you with this. The expense will be in the computer time it will take to duplicate the numbers, etc.

[Tom Deering]

Randy,<P> There have been some very interesting "do it yourself" suggestions offered which might be labor intensive and deliver reasonable good results.<BR>I am reasonably sure the coloring on your plastic was applied by a vacuum deposition process. This process applied metal to the back side of clear plastic items and wear resistance was provided by the clear parent material.<BR>The process had matured far enough by the '50s, where it became economical to use on commercial products such as the "tinsel" that was so common on our mid-'50s cars. The down side to this is the fact that there were photo masks involved to deposit the material in the desired locations. I.E. numerals and other nomenclature. <P> Todays photo-engineering techniques which may include scanning or digitizing, might make this an affordable process in a one-off application such as yours. This way, you would finish with an item that was restored using the original process. For info and a vendor who might provide this service, go to: <A HREF="http://cvvacuumplaters.com" TARGET=_blank>http://cvvacuumplaters.com</A> <P> Here's Hoping--Tom

[Guest stude8]

Just another comment for thought. I work for the Lowrey Organ Co. We have used hot stamp Gold name application to our stop tabs used to select organ voices since the early 1960's. The blank tabs are injection molded from transluscent poly carbonate tinted in primary colors that are attributed to certain voice families. A "Male" letter die for each name "Flute", "Reed" etc is heated in an air press and is applied to a strip of Gold Mylar material and pressed against the tab surface a prescribed depth which imparts a Gold filled impression about .025 deep. This whole cycle only takes a few seconds. The tool retracts, the Gold tape advances and the next tab is positioned in the holder. Whether this process was available in the 1950's is unknown but it was certainly proven to work well in 1963.<BR>Stude8

[Al Smeraldo]

I worked for a factory thad did hot stamping in 1960 the machines were quite old so I'm sure this process was in use well before the 50s. Al