[TMC] Cabinet Colors

[WA5CAB at cs.com]

I was sitting here trying to decide whether to finish my cold 807 or pour 
the remainder out in the morning and, having decided on the former, needed 
something to briefly occupy my fingers between sips.  Paint finish or surface 
types, like military and quasi-military radio nomenclature, seem to be 
habitually misnamed, misdescribed, miscalled or misspoken by hams and and other 
radio collectors.  I've noticed several instances in this and another recent 
thread where paint surface finish type is variously called crinkle, wrinkle, 
crackle and textured.  Of those four, three are valid finish types that 
have been produced over the past century.  The first, to the best of my 
knowledge, never has (there was, however, once a gift wrapping paper called that).  
The second was quite common on military and high-end commercial radios 
until about the late 50's.  The third was used by General Radio on a lot of 
their test equipment into the 60's and by RCA on a few radio models (early 
BC-312's for example) circa 1940-1942.  I don't recall any other examples but I'm 
sure there were a few.  Textured was popular on some civilian equipment and 
appliances in the 50's and early 60's.  And has been widely used on walls 
and ceilings for many years.

Wrinkle is a finish that expands on curing leaving a uniformly rough surf
ace with very low light reflectivity characterised by thousands of sharp hills 
and valleys in random orientation over the painted surface (sorta like the 
backs of my hands).  Crackle is a finish that shrinks on curing, leaving 
cracks running through the otherwise smooth level surface, like a dried mud 
flat.  Textured looks like paint with a lot of fairly uniform size dried 
particles mixed into it, leaving a surface where the top surface is at two fairly 
unformly different levels.  My recollection is that on equipment the 
particle size is generally larger than on walls and ceilings.

I've seen TMC gear with wrinkle finish.  And if someone were to tell me 
they had seen TMC gear with a textured finish, I couldn't swear that they were 
wrong as the finish was somewhat in vogue in certain circles during the 
latter years TMC was in business.  But I'm sure none of it was ever painted with 
crackle or with the non-existant crinkle paint.

So to paraphrase what was once a well known retort in Grande Prix circles, 
the word, sir, is "wrinkle".

Robert Downs - Houston
wa5cab dot com (Web Store)
MVPA 9480