traditional lake style header paint/coating?

Getting ready to build my headers and I did a search and couldn't find what I was looking for. I am building the car as a kid would have done in '46. What would they have coated the headers with if anything? I don't think white headers were in style yet. Chrome is too expensive for our budget. I was thinking of just leaving them in raw steel and scotch brite them as need be to keep them looking raw. What do you guys think.

 

Silver paint, blistered and rusty in spots.

Unless you were a high roller, then they were chrome with blued hot spots.

 

Black paint was very common along with Silver

 

Never thought of silver. Does anybody have any old pics of silver headers?

 

The headers on my 51 Merc's flathead were just rusty when I bought it in 1963 and they had probably been on it for better than ten years then. I'm not sure what year VHT started selling header paint but the early rodders probably used stove paint intended for wood burning stoves. That was probably about as close to high temp paint as they had in the 50's and earlier.

 

That's how I remember them. NASA hadn't invented all that high tech stuff yet.

 

Mine are raw steel I use the old timey hot rod trick of coating them in ATF fluid.
Makes a stinky smoke when you fire her up, but hardens to a cool old time look.
You do have to scoth brite and re-apply periodically. I carry a zip lock bag under my seat with an ATF soaked scotch brite pad.

its burnt off and needs to be re applied in this shot

 

The ATF trick works great you just have to re apply it when needed and they will develop a nice color

 

I painted my Gear Drivelake headers and they still look great. I ended up using VHT Hi-Temp Black. Primed them with Hi-Temp primer, lightly sanded, then applied the black in 2 light coats. basicly, follow the directions on the can to the letter!

Use a tack rag to remove greasy finger prints from handling. Follow the instructions to the letter!



I've had water and mud splash on them and I just wipe them down at the end of the day. I dripped some oil on them once and wiped, ran the engine for a while, let cool and lightly sprayed that spot. can't even tell.

Follow the instructions to the letter!

 

Prewarpete, what does the ATF do to the pipes? I like the idea.

 

Google, "bluing of metal" or "gun bluing". It's the finish used on some guns. I considered it, but went with paint instead.

 

Gun bluing or stove polish. The stove polish looks real good.

 

The ATF "seasons" them. Wipe them down real good with thinner or something similar before you run the motor, then wipe them down liberally with ATF, then run the motor and let it burn off (it will smoke like crazy till it burns off) I usually apply again a couple more times when new, then just very once in a while as needed. They will develop a nice brownish color and not rust.

 

It blackens the pipes and gives a wonderful patina you do have to re apply almost every time you store the car and suffer the burn off when you start up