Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

I have done searches several keywords. Nothing came up. Do you have to be signed in for better results? What process was used for the 55 clipper frt marker lenses silver coating and gold color coating on the inside of the plastic? Is this the same as the gold on the center of the gages in the cluster? The only thing that came up was Cli55ers project. Is the brass paint acceptable on the inside of the plastic and will it allow light to come through with the limited illumination available from the marker through the lens side wall to the gold"V"? Any pics to show the paint match? Tnx

I haven't examined an assy up close so could be all wet but with the placement location on the lens I doubt the V would have allowed light transmission. I think it was more an advertisement for the V8 engine and would have just been an inexpensive version of the same ornamental statement as the V in the grill on senior cars.

If part of the plastic lens, almost all the plastic emblems on the outside of car were done with some kind of process that deposited a coating on the inside of plastic for the color to show thru and then that coating was covered with another coat or two of paint or some impervious substance to make the color part weather proof. From what I remember that coating was gray and opaque so no light would have passed.

How the inside was painted or coated to do the color is the $64 question. There are a few on the forum now trying to figure that out so they can restore their emblems. I know I have tried just about every paint available at retail and nothing tried yet has the brilliance of the original finish after being viewed thru the plastic. The way the old stuff flakes off and kind of corrodes I am almost convinced it was some kind of metalization process.

Am sure someone will eventually figure it out and places like emblem magic and another shop that did restos already have but so far no one has wanted to pass the info on.

Perhaps the method was vacuum deposition.

I am thinking vapor deposition was used for the silver. Searching the net the process was perfected and used in the thirties . The info seems to support aluminun vac dep and poss brass. Howard, I did see a grey coating over the bright silver ( aluminum) coating covering it on the back and you are correct that this will allow virtually no light through. This was not on my lenses on the gold areas and in fact the whole separation wall between the clear sealed area of the lenses and the "V" ares was uncoated so as to allow light to pass . The silver areas of the lenses and the grey over coating were still quite intact in these areas so separation wall completely clear is not due to wear. The gold area is much more warn off and missing and does not seem to have the overcoating. Can other V8 owners inspect one of theirs and verify the same and that these are orig and not already tinkered with by previous owner? I believe a warm glow - same as the dash may be the original presentation. If so. It would be cool to recreate it.

The info I gathered was that the vapor deposited aluminum gas chamber coatings were very thin and needed to be overcoated for protection and corrosion resistance. If used outdoors tarnishing would occure. The gold on the V being uncoated would have done intentionally to let light through.
I did see people on the net plating at home and the corrosive acids and gasses would seem to make this impractical. The brush plating was interesting and using 5-6 volts DC to plate seemed like a great solution for some items. Seems their process of coating with an adhesion layer and then a conductive paint on layer eliminated alot of the caustics but coating on the OUTSIDE of plastic would not be acceptable in this lens application. Anyone used/ using the brush plate kit?

I've used the Caswell plug and plate chrome kit on brass and it works fairly well. The parts do have to be immaculate though. The least bit of even skin oil and the chrome skips over so you wind up with a blotchy mess. I don't know if the gold kit is more involved or not.

Caswell has a couple of products that can be applied to plastic to make the surface conductive and supposedly allows "easy" electroplating over the plastic. Not many details on one product as to whether it is a transparent or opaque substance and the other sounds as if it might be a real suspended silver paint. Doubt either would work for our purposes but maybe worth experimenting. To buy a plastic product plus the plating kit with no assurance of success would be kinda expensive unless you could use the plating part to do some other small metal parts.

Yes. Plastic and other conductive parts. Not familiar with the caswel brand you mentioned but go to youtube or google " gold plating a golf ball" seems to be a brush plating operation but it is opaque gold over 2 under coatings and is on the outside of a plastic ( or a conductive metal) and may be of use for some trim parts but not for the inside of plastic. Not sure bout posting the link here.

My first job out of High School back in the early 80's was manufacturing plastic with silver and Gold brilliant reflective coating.

We did use the Atmospheric Vacuum Vapor method.

After the plastic was loaded into the racking, we placed small candy cane shaped metals into coil electrodes. the canes were either gold or silver depending on the reflective colors we were running.

Once the vacuum was pulled down, we fired off the coil electrodes which instantly vaporized the metal cane and distributed it to anything within the Bell chamber.

The parts were immediately taken out of the rack and a paint coating was applied over the back to seal the metal.

This is the same process in which mirrors are made. Based on the way the emblems and gauges degrade over time, I would agree that most likely a metal based process was used.

Many methods for metallizing non-conductive plastic surfaces for electronics, radio frequency shielding, and decorative purposes. I'm probably digressing but.....

Way back when, circuitry from one side of a printed circuit board to the other was accomplished by metallic rivets connecting circuitry on one side to the other until a process called "electroless plating" came along (about 1960), primary patents to Photocircuits Inc. of Glen Cove, L.I. It came to be used not just for circuit boards but for all manner of plating copper (or nickel) on non-conductive substrates. It was a complicated chemical process with about a dozen steps but in essence it consisted of first depositing an adherant "catalyst" of a tin/palladium colloid on the surface. Then the tin was etched away leaving hyperactive palladium. The part was then immersed in an alkaline copper complex with a reducing agent like formaldehyde and the palladium triggered a catalytic reduction that deposited metallic copper on the surface. This layer was sufficiently conductive to then allow thickness to be built if desired using conventional electroplating. A simplification of this came along in the early 1990s which applied a thin layer of adherent carbon black or graphite which was sufficiently conductive itself to allow direct electroplating. One advantage of the carbon black technology was that it could be done selectively on a surface by electrostatic imaging not unlike what a photocopier does. I spent a fair amount of my career in the chemical industry working on such systems.

Lots of early plated automotive interior trim in the 60s and perhaps the 70s was done by this method. Though it was certainly known previously, I'm guessing vacuum metallization probably was the winning technology.

Thanks for the input Troy , Dave and all . Upon closer look I may have to agree with Howard . Though one lens is worn severly the other seems to show a grey, green-gray coating over the gold colored plating on the inside of the "V" . So this was probably a brass or bronze alloy vapor deposition and the grey/green overcoating to protect it from oxidation was most likely opaque and did not allow light when the park lights were on at night. I still have to emphasize that the grey coating over the silver and the gr/grey over the gold is not on the sides of the inner portions of the inner lens wall areas.. This must have been a 2 step vac dep process due to the 2 colors but how did they get the overcoating only on certain surfaces? Did they mask- vapor deposite the silver then spray then unmask and do the same for the gold? Still an extremely labor intensive process. Or poss hand paint after the 2 metallic vapor dep processes? Seems alot to go thru for a lens.
Certainly a gold opaque gloss finish on these aresa is easy to replicate but I was more interested in the possibility of this area emmiting light and glowing a gold hue while illuminated at night. Dont want to over restore and create something that wasnot there from the factory. (Unless its really, really cool). G'day gents.