Restoring vintage name plate

[cgrutt]

How do you guys go about restoring vintage name plates? I want to bring this back to life:

The plate itself seems to be brass. I bead blasted it and removed all the paint. The surround and Walker Turner lettering wound up silver. The rest of the plate is brass.

I sprayed the whole plate gloss black and then used modeling enamel to paint surround silver and inset gold. Let's say it looks artsy and leave it at that, LOL. Actually need to go back over the lettering with a finer brush in black and it might turn OK.

Thought about masking everything off with tape and cutting out lettering to spray it, but not sure I will be able to cut everything perfectly.

I'm sure I'm not the first guy around here that wanted to restore something like this, so what did you do and how did it turn out? Thanks!

 

[cgrutt]

Also, lettering on inset is raised a bit and lettering on surround is cut below surface so I was also thinking about spraying the whole piece with two colors (e.g., inset first black followed by gold and surround first silver followed by black) and then going over everything with a dremel and wire brush (?) and removing the top layer of paint off raised surfaces. Not sure how that would turn out though...

 

[GETRIDAONE]

I first tried having a new label made and was going to put it on a new aluminum disc. The size & curved in the aluminum was a problem.
I then decided to make it look used with some patina on it. All the paint on the lettering was pretty much gone so I started by stripping what was left. I polished the aluminum just enough so it wasn't dull. I put black lacquer paint in the outside letters and wiped off the excess leaving the depressions filled. Next was the Walker Turner done was a small brush and a lot of patience. I used yellow & orange highlighters with a brown magic marker to blend the faded looking orange background. Last was a coat of clear lacquer.

 

[cgrutt]

Looks great!

Second attempt at it last night with a brush and am learning artist I'm not, LOL...

My issue is the inside and surround on outside need to be painted as well. I like how you did the lettering on outside and thought about that but not sure how to do it with two layers of paint. I didn't realize it was aluminum on outside but that makes sense. The problem is that not all of it is there on mine so color needs to be added along with lettering.

Now I'm thinking about spraying the plate gold, masking center and spraying outside silver, painting the walker turner by hand and using a permanent marker on the fine lettering. I used a very fine brush and it just didn't come out that good for me twice now...

Thanks for sharing how you restored yours, it looks awesome!

 

[cgrutt]

Third attempt, think I'm going to let it be. Still need to clear coat it. What do you guys think?

 

[jabbie]

You can try to do the small lettering with paint that has been thinned out, so it is very runny, you should only need to put the tip of the brush into the depression of the letter and the paint should flow and fill out the letter. Since the paint is so thinned out you may need to go back and do a second coat once the first layer has dried.

 

[Cruzan80]

Otherwise, if you overfill with model paint, and then take a paper towel with mineral spirits and run it over the metal when still mostly wet (wait 5-10 min), it should take out anything that isn't in the detents.

 

[cgrutt]

Thanks guys. I need to redo it LOL. Sprayed it with clear enamel and it ate the model paint...