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I just disassembled the center cap for a 55-6 horn ring. The brass colored stamped aluminum center piece with the Desoto icons has lost a lot of its brassiness.
How have others restored this piece ? Hoping to find a paint that will simulate the color.
Tim Bowers: What did you end up doing for the 55 and 56 Desotos that you restored ?
Ron
I just wire wheeled the backside of an extra that I have here and it is made of brass. It was probably lacquered originally to protect its sheen.
At the NDC meet in Chattanooga we were dinged a point for having our horn ring center "too shiny" Everyone is used to seeing them pretty well tarnished, but everyone I've opened is pretty bright underneath where the part stayed out of the daylight. I whined about it a little about the gloss level being dinged.....
We have the parts nickle plated, and then use Caswell Plating's gold plating system to give them a renewed gold look.
There's a pretty common hiway hifi advertisement image circulating of the dash area of the '56 DeSoto and the record player. A very pretty lady is putting a record on the player, IIRC. It is a photograph, not a drawing. In that picture you can see that the emblem in the center of the dash above the radio and the horn ring center were quite shiny.
Picture courtesy of Lee Exline and his excellent website http://www.roadkillontheweb.com
It's supposed to be fun!
1949 De Soto Custom Convertible (project)
Yes, it's probably brass. There is definitely a brass/bronze/dull gold coating, as most of this coating is worn away on the outside of my piece. Underneath, in the area that was protected, it is a shiny anodized goldish color.
Ron
the center and the ring are pure brass. I've taken a few apart and simply buffed them to a sparkly gold. you don't have to worry about buffing through any plating; they are solid brass. I got crazy on one and had it gold plated and it became a jewel.
So are you saying is that the center cap for the steering wheel is JUST brass color with NO other colors painted on it?? It looks almost like there is some "white" on it in that magazine HiFi Photo.
Jim
Jim
