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I have a 1940 club sedan and one of the escutcheons broke today. I went to Kanter in Boonton NJ and they don't have anything to match. Its brown and a beige mix sort of like tortoise shell. can anyone help locating them?
Thanks
Tom e

Tom - I got the escutcheons for my 41 from "Yesterday's Radio" (http://www.yesterdaysradio.com/). They have them for 40s too.

Only problem I had with them was I could never get the damn things on. No matter how hard I pressed and swore, there wasn't enough space to get the pin back into the handles.

It is rumoured that the highly secretive Packard Escuthcheon Club knows how to do it, but they won't tell anyone as the only way to get into the club is to get them on yourself. Glenn Vaughn's crew got mine on, but they're not talking as they are obviously members of the PEC.

Quote:

You must have been using refined swearing. I find the style used by a sailor down on the dock works better.

On this same topic...... mine were brittle and warped from the sun exposure. So its good there is a new source for these.

My front door handles wont come off the shaft even though I removed the pins. There must be some corrosion holding them on.

Hello,
I took one of my original 1940 escutcheons to a plastics show at the Cleveland IX Center years ago. I showed it to dozens of manufacturers and asked if they knew how this effect was done. Everyone of them wanted to know where it came from. They all had marbled plastics. I told them that it was made in 1940. They said that they had never seen anything like it. At the present time I don't know of anyone making them.
Jerry

Tom
Several years ago, Jim Hollingsworth gave me this name:
SM Troosh (805) 528-4594 1831 8th St,Los Osos, CA 93402-2709

It seems to me he does this. He is a one-off, a character, but very nice guy. I just couldn't afford to have him do my entire 40 dash in the marbleized brown plastic. I vaguely remember that he is a specialist and does Pebble Beach cars. If you call him, I'd be very interested in what transpires.

Plastic was "in", but not great. Probably not UV resistant, etc. All that remained of mine, in a convertible, was the gear shift knob (oiled daily from my shifting), vent knob, and a couple of shaded control knobs. The dash plastic itself just corroded away and did the escutcheons. I switched over to a sort of caramel color.

David E Miller's (Orange, CA) 1940 Darrin 2-dr conv, featured in Packards International magazine Winter 2005, has mottled plastic knobs, but not the same as Packard produced then. Possibly Darrin designed and made their own, as they did with several items on those customs. It is a beautiful burled walnut look.

It made me recall as kids we used to float drops of different colors of enamel paint on water in a jar or can. You can create a pretty interesting design. Then, with the paint forming a wet skin on the top of the water, you dip something dead center straight down. The skin coats the item and voila! your item has a beautiful marbleized finish when you withdraw it.

Maybe some enterprising person could figure out how to do whole dashboards that way. And with the clear coated plastic paints, maybe other parts could be made that way too, but the primer may melt the plastic. Worth an experiment maybe.

Joe

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Here's another place that was mentioned on the old AACA forum. No idea as to any specifics about them or what exactly they have other than what is on website.http://packardplastic.com/

Here is AACA forumhttp://forums.aaca.org/f135/selling-packard-dash-plastic-1939-40-a-249717.html#post577614

Thank You All, for the help with the Escutheons, I have a lot
Of research to do.
Thanks Again
Tom e

there are several ways to do mottled plastic coloring - today as then. I'm sure Jerry at Yesterday's could do it. it involves using multuple pigments and incomplete mixing.

Hello,
The plastic dash shown in the above link is made by GRAIN-IT TECHNOLOGIES located in Winter Haven, FL 33880.
Evan and John do excellent work. Their website, www.woodgraining.com, shows much of their work. They also sell woodgraining equipment and patterns. I wood grained my 1940 Packard with their products and I was extremely satisfied with the results. I recommend them highly.
Regarding the escutcheons, the originals have more than mixed colors. There is also something similar to mica mixed in. The process is very hard to control.

Jerry