Another lesson learned

With the touch-up paint task behind me, I thought “why not use the silver paint on some of the parts that lost their chrome”.  Sounded good at the time, so I tried it out on a small piece, like the bobbin winder lever.  Here is what it looked like before I attempted to apply the silver paint:

Putting the paint on made the lever look better, in my opinion. Certainly not back to it’s original condition, but more aesthetically pleasing.

The next day I decided to check out how the painted piece would hold up to cleaning and oiling that Ms. Rusty would endure after she is back in operation (assuming I can get her there!).  So, I took a cotton swab and dipped one end in kerosene and the other end in oil.  Unfortunately, the paint DID NOT HOLD UP!

Touch-up Painting

In this episode I’ll be putting the finishing details on the lamp shade/housing, the tension disk indicator, the stitch length indicator, and the bobbin winder.

Here is the set of paints and brushes used for this part of the project.  The silver and black paint are enamels and the white paint is acrylic (and it was on sale!).  All three are Testors model paint.

Lamp Shade –

The inside of the original shade was painted silver, most likely to aid in reflecting the light to the work surface.  Since I had previously powder coated this piece entirely black, it was necessary to paint the inside the shade with silver to restore it to it’s original condition.  One coat wasn’t enough as the black showed through some streaks, but 2 coats did the trick.

One coat:  2 coats: 

Tension disk indicator –