Saturday January 13, 2007The weather here continues to be mild. Temperatures were in the mid 60's. Not your typical Mid-January weather. Most of the work I did was indoors but I did do the little bit of painting outside. My goal was to make more headway on the Dashboard |
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The work I did on the wood graining needed to be softened in some areas so I used very fine steel wool to even out the stain and then worked on the areas in question with a suitable brush. The weather was cooperative so I took care of this outside. Buffed the chrome pieces and brought them back to a mirror finish with extra fine steel wool. I will give the dashboard a good week to dry and harden before I buff it down with very fine steel wool and spray it with clear coat. |
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Some of the mileage numbers on my odometer were peeling from age. It appears that they were originally decals. I decided to take the odometer apart and see if I could repair this cosmetic condition. The great thing about items made in the forties and older is that for the most part everything is designed to be taken apart and serviced. We haven't gotten to the "Use it once and throw it away period". After the odometer was apart I of course cleaned everything. |
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I removed the mileage wheel assembly and brushed off the area where the decal was blistered. All areas were extremely fragile and would crack apart so great care needed to be taken. I matched the discolored decal to a light beige paint then used an artists brush to paint the aluminum wheels. Once it dried I sprayed the entire wheel assembly with Krylon Crystal Clear Acrylic Coating. My wife uses this stuff with her pottery crafts. The clear lacquer soaks through the decal and makes a hard stable finish. No more peeling and flaking of the numbers. After it dried I used a razor to clean the area between the wheels. I used an extra fine wet permanent marking pen to fill in the printed numbers which were missing pieces as well as drawing in the missing numbers. |
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I priced the odometer repair at between $250 to $500.00. I figured for that kind of money why not give it a shot. Well my drawn in numbers are not perfect but they are very functional. Only 5 numbers had to be completely redrawn. Actually the whole gauge assembly below worked out extremely well. |
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