So, for quite some time I've been thinking about how to get a close match to gold trim on vintage equipment. I think the term "plating" is over-used personally. Manufacturers like to use gold (a lot in the 1950s it seems) to add the illusion of great expense and classiness. It seems that most of the time it is either toned lacquer over a highly polished material like nickel OR anodized metal color via a chemical process.
The problem is, decades later the "coating" is damaged from handling. As a restorer, the choices are limited (unless you have $$$$ to spend on some wild custom stuff). Like most, I have NEVER had satisfactory results from any kind of gold spray paint. It is opaque, and always looks painted on when the results are revealed.
The trick is to literally have something transparent that allows the base metal to shine through allowing the mirror like quality to be retained while keeping the correct coloring to make it appear gold, brass, or a combination of both.
In 2010 I took a gamble and bought some spray cans of what was relatively new (at that time) for the Duplicolor product line.
I put the cans on the shelf and forgot about them for quite some time. Other projects took priority. I finally got around to messing with them again and I wanted to share the results that look quite promising. I don't know how well it would hold up on a frequently handled control panel, but it seems the beat the crap out of regular "spray paint".
I used a Crosley pointer as practice. Typically you find the Crosley "coloradios" with the gold "worn" off leaving what appears to be chrome. I used some acetone to clean the pointer off thoroughly and then hit it with some yellow Duplicolor Metalcast and then after drying a little bit, hit it with some orange Duplicolor Metalcast to try to "tint" the color. The yellow alone, seemed a bit too "plain" yellow.
Sorry I don't have any before pics. Basically it looked like colorless nickel metal.
