[R-390] Calligraphy Pen for Non-engraved Front Panel Lettering

[Bob Camp]

Hi

This is a little off topic but hey, why not.

I have one of the Motorola front panels that are kind of interesting. 
It obviously have been around for a while and they have worn paint. 
Nothing unusual so far.

What is unusual is that under the top coat of paint is a second coat of 
paint. The second coat of paint is complete with it's own set of 
screened on lettering. The second set of lettering is offset from the 
lettering on the top layer. I don't know enough about the history of 
these radios to know if the military repainted them or not. The other 
possibility is that the factory goofed and repainted them. Doing a over 
paint / repaint job on a screened panel obviously didn't bother the 
military inspectors.

I *assume* that the original lettering went on with a silk screen 
process. Having done it a number of times it's not as hard as you might 
think. They guys that do novelty tee shirts do it all the time and 
that's hardly a high tech industry. On electronic gear we normally do 
it with a wooden frame around the screen and a hand squeegee moving the 
paint around. If you want to go crazy you can use stainless steel 
screens and a fancy printer but for panel marking a cheap screen and a 
wooden frame. Your local tee shirt factory probably can help out with a 
source for the screens if you have a scan of a good front panel.

At least in my experience, if we go back into the business of 
fabricating replacement front panels for the 390 the silk screen 
process is the way to go. If you are going to duplicate a real panel 
you will at least need to silk screen the back side anyway. Doing it on 
both sides isn't all that much harder.

	Take Care!

		Bob Camp
		KB8TQ


On Oct 9, 2004, at 9:44 AM, K2CBY at aol.com wrote:

> I had good luck restoring an early Motorola R-390A front panel on 
> which the
> lettering had been silk screened.
>
> I masked the lettering with Scotch Transparent Tape, used an Xacto 
> knife to
> trim the mask as tight to the characters as possible, and peeled off 
> the
> surplus  tape.
>
> I then repainted the panel with three coats of Ace Hardware gray spray
> enamel (an excellent color match), allowing a day between coats.
>
> After the last coat had dried for a week, I peeled off the mask.
>
> Finally, I sprayed the unmasked panel with several coats of Verithane 
> satin
> finish clear acrylic varnish, sanding with #400 between coats. This 
> "filled
> in" the masked areas.
>
> The result was a beautiful job that has withstood a lot of rough  
> handling.
>
> Miles, K2CBY
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