painting those raised letter valve covers !

I didnt see a thread on this so i thought i'd post a few pics of how i did mine as i know people have asked me. I picked up a decent set of these mercury y-block covers at a swap meet a while back ,i thought they were kinda cool and cant afford the pollished t-bird ones right now. These were in pretty decent shape but i thought they could use freshened up. I kinda liked the factory seafoam green and wanted the mercury letters to pop. I threw them in the blast cabinet & got them cleaned up, wiped em down with some cleaner, then it was onto primer. after i had them cleaned up & primed i sprayed some red paint over the lettering, once dried i layed some blue painters tape over the top & rubed it down over the lettering, to aid myself i took a balpoint pen and traced around the lettering also sealing the tape down. Next it was time to get my xacto knife out , with a steady hand i carefully cut the tape around where i had traced being carefull not to press to hard ! With the lettering cut out i peeled off the excess tape . Now you can paint the covers , after the paint has dried carefully pick the tape off revealing the color underneath ! I think these turned out pretty slick & hopefully this will help someone else !

 

nice job...

 

thanks zman !

 

Dude! I just bought some stamped Oldsmobile valve covers and I wondered how I was going to free hand painting those letters without it looking like I free hand painted those letters!!! Thanks much.

Can you post a pick of the xacto knife you used? Where did you get it?

 

nice work, I have been doing chevy valve covers this way for years and never thought to show anybody.

 

Another way of doing it is to lay down the paint for the letters and then lay down the paint for the valve covers. Once its cured you carefully buff off the paint over the letters revealing your base coat. I think this is how guys restore license plates.

 

Simple. Cheap. Effective. Nice!!

 

thanks guys ! its just a cheap xacto knife i picked up at wal-mart ! i will try to post pics later ! they should be available most places !hobby shop etc.

 

I must be doing something wrong, I have never had any luck with that blue tape it always bleeds through.

 

hey guys,
what i use is Vaseline, put down your letter colour and dry. "paint" on your Vaseline then paint the top coat.
You should be able to just wipe the bits you have coated off

 

Dirtbag Nice Job! Clean and simple

 

that came out nice and I think even I can figure this one out

 

Best way to do this is to find an old school sign painter,(me), and pay me to do it. I would even throw in a bit of pin striping to doll it up................

Jim Rizzo just did an article on this exact theme in the latest Street Rodder.

Mott

 

nice job and easy enough to follow!!!

 

Very cool, now why didn't I think of that?

 

Nice job..thanks for posting!

 

The same thing works on tailgate letters as well, aka color sanding.

Bob

 

Great job! I especially like the ball point pen part....helps seal that tape down all the way. I'll be doing that!

 

Those look great.

I have a set of SBC covers that I need to do. Thanks for posting.

JH

 

Good post!

 

I have set of Ford Y-Blocks and a set of SBC that I'd like to do that to, thanks for the post your covers look great.

 

On raised letters on covers & on letters on pickups & such , I 've used a small roller ,it works

 

Are you talking regular blue painter's tape? This thread looks like it uses proper edge tape, which is more like electrical tape without the stretchiness. It won't bleed thru, only under.

Awesome post too, the ball point is a great tip. Having worked at a place with detail painting on the products, also seen PTFE or delrin rods custom shaped into tape burnishers.

 

Looks like a good way to do license plates also.

 

Thanks for the tech info. My Ford 223 in-line 6 has a pretty nice valve cover, but this technique will make it very cool.

 

This may sound like a stupid question, but here goes. The letters on the valve covers aren't sharply defined, and the sides round or slope down onto the top of the valve cover. Is there an easy technique to keeping all the raised letters the same size? By this I mean you cut the first letter out, and the next maybe isn't cut as wide or wider than the first, then after you paint them they look uneven. You do any width measuring, or just a good eye??

 

fidget this is why i used the ball point pen , the letters on mine werent very well defined but the tip of the pen seemed to follow the edge well enough , perhaps you could lay a straight edge ruler acrost the top and bottom and draw a line then connect the uprights of the letters to match up to those lines ?

 

Nice thread..I really like the contrast b/n the colors. I also saw this in the newest Street Rodder..also an excellent article for redoing an early SBC. I especially like your tip on using the ballpoint pen. I think that would help prevent some of the paint bleed.

 

Nice job!

They sell some stuff for airbrush artists in art stores called "Friskit". It's clear masking film, and it comes in a couple of different stickynesses. That might be easier to cut than masking tape, and you can see through it. But I don't know if it holds up to all types of paints. I used some for doing airbrush paintings on poster board with water-based acrylic paint, and it works great for that, and it cuts really easily with a sharp X-acto blade.

 

great tech..thanks