[Milsurplus] Wrinkle painting an engraved panel

[Mike Hanz]

I wish there was a simple solution.  The closest I've come to such a 
thing is to use masking fluid from the crafts stores.  You can apply it 
with a tiny artist's brush and it hardens to a mask with a rubbery 
coating that you can then paint over.  Wait until the paint is cured and 
then you can get it off fairly easily with plastic prod or a slender 
Exacto knife under a magnifying glass - it's essentially a mold release 
film.  The difficulty is the edge of the paint film, which comes out 
jagged if you're not careful.  GE was not enamored of raised lettering, 
and used crappy paint techniques to boot.  The RAX-1 receiver volume 
controls are almost impossible to find in pristine condition because of 
it.  There ain't no free lunch...

Todd, KA1KAQ wrote:

>On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 16:04:24 -0700, Robert Goff
><robert_h_goff at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>I'm working on re-painting an engraved panel with black wrinkle that was
>>stripped by the previous owner.
>>
>>My trouble is that, in order to wrinkle properly, the paint has to be thick
>>enough that it fills the shallow engraving making it impossible to
>>re-letter.
>>
>
>I suspect this is why a lot of gear had raised lettering, easier to
>clean off the raised letters than to deal with filled lettering.
>
>One of the odd things I came across while restoring an old broadcast
>console was the process used to first paint the panel with several
>layers of paint, then to engrave the letters through the paint. I
>thought I was imagining it, but one area where the paint was worn down
>around an often-used switch confirmed this by very shallow engraving
>in the actual metal, while it was much deeper elsewhere. What a pain.
>
>This leads me to suggest the only alternative that comes to mind:
>repainting the panel (power coating or baking to make the paint hard),
>then taking it to a professional engraver to have the lettering done.
>Obviously it would be pricey, so it would depend on the item ad your
>desire for authenticity. Take a good picture before painting if you
>choose this route, with a closeup of the font used.
>
>I have a BC-191 that I believe has engraving as opposed to raised
>lettering and needs paint, so it will be interesting to see what the
>old hands here suggest. Someone probably has a simple solution,
>usually discovered after trying all of the obviously difficult
>approaches.
>
>de Todd/'Boomer'  KA1KAQ
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