tank badge restoration

[milwaukeephil]

Hello,
Has anybody stripped the paint off a Honda aluminum tank badge? Does it come off easily?

I have my tank done (finally!) and it deserves nice new-looking badges. I have the ones that came off, but there is paint chipping here and there. I saw a thread here where someone painted theirs black and then sanded the high edges (I work in the beer sign industry and the process is called fill-and-wipe). While this looks nice, I'd like to actually restore mine.

My plan was to:

1) strip the paint with aircraft stripper (DOES IT COME OFF???)
2) buff the bare aluminum to a high shine
3) get some Testors model paint and go to town with a tiny paintbrush (IS THERE A BETTER PAINT TO USE???)
4) clearcoat the whole thing

Has anybody else restored badges before? I'd love to know how you did it...

-phil

 

[Swagger]

Chemical paint-strippers can do some pretty bad damage to cast aluminum, especially the high tin/zinc stuff used in badges and emblems.
To best preserve what you have, get the badges bead blasted clean, polish the parts you want shiny then use liquid masking tape (at any hardware store or hobby shop) and spray with an epoxy based enchant paint. Peal off the mask and revel in the shiny bits of perfection you've just made!

 

[milwaukeephil]

Chemical paint-strippers can do some pretty bad damage to cast aluminum, especially the high tin/zinc stuff used in badges and emblems.
To best preserve what you have, get the badges bead blasted clean, polish the parts you want shiny then use liquid masking tape (at any hardware store or hobby shop) and spray with an epoxy based enchant paint. Peal off the mask and revel in the shiny bits of perfection you've just made!

That's EXACTLY the reply I was looking for -- I was about to ruin them tonight with aircraft stripper!

I understand everything you said except the enchant paint -- did you mean etching? And can I get it in a spray can so I don't have to load up a gun?

 

[milwaukeephil]

Okay, I've been thinking about this today during work and aren't most aircraft made of aluminum? Or are you saying it's some of the other metals they put in badges? I'm thinking tonight I might try a little dab of aircraft stripper on the back side of a badge and see if it pits it.

The reason I ask is my buddy with the blasting cabinet has aluminum oxide in it right now and doesn't know when he'll switch to ceramic, so I'm trying to figure out how to get the paint off these things via another method...

 

[Swagger]

Yes, some planes are made of aluminum, however teh stuff used to cast is so heavily alloyed with crap like tin and zinc that you may eat the entire thing away...that'd be bad

 

[milwaukeephil]

Well, I fully agree with you that aircraft stripper could damage badges, HOWEVER, in the case of 1972 Honda CL350 badges, Bix doesn't hurt them. I only know this because I cautiously tested a spot on the back of a badge for 2 days and then finally took the plunge and tried it on the front after a careful inspection (with a 10x Lupe!) to make sure it wasn't going to pit the metal.

So now I've got the badges stripped to bare metal and I'm going to follow Swagger's suggestion on the paint. Hopefully I'll have some results tomorrow...

-phil

 

[Swagger]

Glad to hear they survived!

 

[milwaukeephil]

Short on time, but I got sick of relying on my friend's blast cabinet so I made my own over the weekend so I could get my badges perfect before paint. Since then, I've gone hog wild blasting and polishing all sorts of parts...

Works great. The bin was $7, $21.99 for the blast gun at Northern Tool, $6 for the blasting gloves at Harbor Freight. There's a strip of weatherstripping along the top edge of the bin.

Results:

Note: I can't take credit for using the bin for the cabinet -- I got the general idea from a guy who did an instructible here, although he used a smaller bin and a single glove; with two gloves, you don't need the tray in the bottom because you can hold onto the part, and it makes it easier to dump the beads back in their conatiner for recyling: http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade_ShotGrit_Blasting_Cabinet/

 

[bhppy101]

Okay, I've been thinking about this today during work and aren't most aircraft made of aluminum? Or are you saying it's some of the other metals they put in badges? I'm thinking tonight I might try a little dab of aircraft stripper on the back side of a badge and see if it pits it.

The reason I ask is my buddy with the blasting cabinet has aluminum oxide in it right now and doesn't know when he'll switch to ceramic, so I'm trying to figure out how to get the paint off these things via another method...

I use aircraft stripper on the emblems of every build that I have done (at least 45 in the past year) if the emblems are metal (alluminum,dicast,zink,etc) and I have never had any issues with damaging the emblem.

Just like you said....try some on the back of the emblem first to check it....I dont..lol....but you can for peace of mind.

But yes....a sandblaster with probably be your best bet. I'm just too lazy to dump out my coarse sand in my blasting cabinet

Aircraft stripper starts working in a matter of minutes....After I see the paint bubble...I just rinse the emblem off and the paint comes right off. They look brand new underneath.

 

[milwaukeephil]

I use aircraft stripper on the emblems of every build that I have done (at least 45 in the past year) if the emblems are metal (alluminum,dicast,zink,etc) and I have never had any issues with damaging the emblem.

Just like you said....try some on the back of the emblem first to check it....I dont..lol....but you can for peace of mind.

But yes....a sandblaster with probably be your best bet. I'm just too lazy to dump out my coarse sand in my blasting cabinet

Aircraft stripper starts working in a matter of minutes....After I see the paint bubble...I just rinse the emblem off and the paint comes right off. They look brand new underneath.

Interesting... so how do you repaint them? So far I'm doing them like someone else here did -- basically spraying black and then sanding off the high points of the logo / outline of the letters. I suppose if I had a steady hand I could try to brush paint the inner part of the letters white like original with some testors model paint...

 

[bhppy101]

I usually leave them as is with no paint....but I have used a paint pen before. If you go to you local automotive parts store you will find various Duplicolor touch up pens in the paint section.

 

[rockwell500k]

i'm not trying to be rude...

but all this effort/work?

you can get new emblems from honda for $30 bucks.

that's what i did anyhow.

 

[milwaukeephil]

i'm not trying to be rude...

but all this effort/work?

you can get new emblems from honda for $30 bucks.

that's what i did anyhow.

No offense taken. The problem is that I've tried to order these badges from multiple dealers and nobody can get them. They've been discontinued, so unless i can find a shop that has them in stock I'm out of luck. If they did have them, they'd be over $30 each. Not to mention that as a new dad who suddenly spends most of his free time around the house, I've got plenty of time to get these badges perfect...

 

[bhppy101]

i'm not trying to be rude...

but all this effort/work?

you can get new emblems from honda for $30 bucks.

that's what i did anyhow.

It really doesnt take much effort at all. Just to remove the paint with stripper takes all of 15 minutes...and another 15 minutes to paint if you wanted to. hmmmm thats $1 a minute ;D

Everyone can just send there tank emblems to me and I'll restore them for you for $1 a minute.

 

[dontaco]

Hell yea. i love the blast box you fabbed up. I want a sand blaster and i saw one from the same place you got yours, how well does it work? How big is your air tank? I might make something similar if you dont mind me copying you here. badges came out good too. nice.

 

[CCRider]

That blast cabinet is way cool. Great idea !

CC

 

[Uncle Ernie]

A friend in Oregon is playing with enamel. He's really doing a good job, but it's pretty labor intensive i think.
Here's a bad shot of a badge he made for my sidecar rig;

 

[Steve Zodiak]

I'm impressed with the cabinet. What's the white tube in the corner - a vent to prvent pressure build up; and is there some kind of filter in it?

 

[milwaukeephil]

I'm impressed with the cabinet. What's the white tube in the corner - a vent to prvent pressure build up; and is there some kind of filter in it?

I wasted a lot of time finding the right size PVC couplings to put that on there -- it was so that I could hook my shop vac up to it to suck up the dust floating in the air, but enough out of the way that it wouldn't suck up blasting media.

As it turned out, the vac was a pain because it sucked the walls of the bin invward, so I ended up covering the hole with duct tape and leaving a sliver of it open for ventilation. That ended up working great and I don't get any mess at all outside the box. In fact, I have it set up in my basement this winter in a very clean shop and there's no mess at all.

I may still hook up the shop vac again, but I would want to drill a few holes in the pvc so I wouldn't have 100% suction.