[Rachelsdad]

Hi, all...

My '63 Bonneville has two specific pairs of gold anodized crests which include painted areas:

Door panel interior
Rear quarter exterior

My current exterior crests need to be re-anodized, as they have faded badly over the years. However, I do have another pair from a parts car which are in surprisingly good shape. All they really needed was some polishing. As per usual, I used Wenol (red tube/box) on them. This had the desired effect on the anodized finish, however, the white border was mostly removed by the polish (not surprising).

In the past, when I have painted aluminum (8-lugs, for example), I've used Alumiprep to etch the aluminum, applied a good primer, and coated with acrylic enamel. I'm wondering if there is a better (or more modern) way to repaint these particular moldings. Also, I can't imagine how I'd get Alumiprep around the tiny lines where I need to paint on the exterior pieces - not to mention the even thinner lines on the door panel crests.

For the first time in 60 years, I actually masked off the door panel crests this evening and polished them. They look much better (the cloth was just black), but again, as expected, the white paint is almost gone. (And who knew there even was white paint on the interior crests?)

TIA

[skunkwerks]

Old way is the best way. Don't think you really need to etch them but you can.
Get a can of etching primer and spray some in the lid and use the detail fine line brush the paint it on. Then add the white enamel on top. Should work out fine.
Thin the enamel to get it to flow out.

[Rachelsdad]

Thanks!

I guess I just needed to hear it from someone else. I aee that Eastwood has some self-etching primer in a rattle can.

The next challenge will be to match the white, but thankfully, both my front and trunk crests were NOS some years ago, and have good paint, so I should be able to match that.

Thanks again!