What in the hell , how in the hell . I've got a set of these 56 Ford caps with red centers. I want black centers. How did they paint these? Is it Lithograph or a tattoo.? Any help or previous tragic stories appreciated.
are you talking black around the letters? just scuff up the area to be painted with scotch brite then blow area clean. take a small modelers paint brush and paint the raised area you don't want painted with vasaline. after paint drys just was it off!
You could also prep as mentioned above and mask off the outer part of the cap. Paint it black with your choice of rattle can black and then when thoroughly dry buff the cap with a cotton wheel and some jewelers rouge removing the paint from the high spots. If you're handy with an x-acto knife you could also tape up the whole cap and cut out the area you want to paint' I just did this to a set of caps for my Fairlane and they turned out great. It's not a bad job just tedious as hell.
I usually tape most of what I can without cutting templates and stuff. Just what I can do with regular stips of tape. They I spray it, getting some over spary in places I don't want. then while the paint is still tacky I use carb cleaner or acetone to wipe clean the areas I need. If you let the paint harden though it will be tough to get it off.
I once repainted hupcaps with similar painted areas (-54 Ford) the following way: Use paint remover to get rid of the previous red paint. Make sure everyhing is 100% clean and use high quality masking tape to cover the letters and the part of the hubcap not to be painted. Use a sharp hobby knife, for instance a model builder knife with a X-acto 11 blade, to trim the masking. Then paint... I used an airbrush, but spraypaint will do. Unmask before the paint is dry to aviod damage around the masking. Its a tricky process and requires a steady hand, but it will give a great result.
i would mask them, or go to a sign shop and have a low tack mask made, but its not that hard to mask them when i worked at a mercedes dealer body shop many moons ago, the caps had the mb star in the middle of the cap, and the ring around the center where yours has ford was painted solid. we had a factory tool that looked like a branding iron that you held over the star, and a soup dish looking thing that sat around the ring. you simply srayed the caps and removed the 2 tools and they always came out perfect i imagine ford used a similar system, but it would probably be tough to find one laying around skull
That's the last option. the tape offf. I was just kinda wondering how FoMoCo. did this on a production level. The ones I have look like they were painted with a stamp.
...OR, you could take one of them to a Vinyl Graphics Shop, and have them make up an exact stick-on for them...
The Jalopy Journal
