Painting 1960 Cowl Grill

[TrevorK]

Hi all,

I’m getting ready to refinish the chrome cowl on my ‘60. I had the piece rechromed, but unfortunately the piece is fairly pitted (and it cost $500 to rechrome!). I found another thread on the forum that talked about painting this piece, but it didn’t seem like anyone commenting in the thread had to deal with the pitting problem. I’m worried that if I just paint as is that it will show all the imperfections.

I talked to my bodyman about it. He thought it would be hard to fill the imperfections and sand it without damaging the chrome finish on the ridges that will show. Any ideas or tips?

I’ve attached a couple of photos so you can see what I’m talking about.

Trevor

[David Greenburg]

That might have been my thread.  Yours looks pretty badly pitted; i agree with your body guy.  If you are going to go through the effort to paint one of these, I recommend starting with a better one; it should not be too difficult to find a cleaner one.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

Not sure if this would work, but I might try to etch-prime the channels, with a very fine brush, and then fill the channels with thicker than usual paint, to fill the pit marks.

With my own '60 CDV, when I got the car, the whole cowl piece was covered with paint, and I just ran razor blades over the top, slicing off the top coatings.   Left the chrome edges showing through.

Sorry I don't have a good picture of what it looked like, but I thought it looked good.

Bruce.

PS.   Yes, the car was originally White.   Must have had a real cheapie repaint before it left USA in the '70's.

[TrevorK]

Thanks for your thoughts guys.  Yes, not a great result on the re-chroming and as I expected there isn't as easy fix.  I do like the suggestion of trying etch prime it and them perhaps filling it with a spot putty.  I figure I may as well try something and see what the result is, since I've already spent the $$ to have it rechromed.   If that fails, I guess I can try to use a different one (the one on my parts car is probably in better shape - I'm kicking myself now that I didn't use that one as my one for rechroming, but to be honest the original one didn't look all that bad and I think the pitting must have really come out when they blasted it for the rechroming process)

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

I don't think it would have been sandblasted as it is pot metal, and sand blasting would have destroyed it.   Pot Metal is very soft.

The stripping of the original Chrome Plating involves an electric process, and this process, plus buffing would have been hard on it.

Bruce.

[fishnjim]

I'd suggest you look for a good used set before you mess with it.   

Your chromer didn't do his job or you didn't want to pay the price for surface repair.   They're supposed to dechrome, copper coat, then sand and buff out and repeat until the surface is once again smooth.   But those grills take beau coup hours to resolve.   They live in a damp environment.
The ones on my '58 where painted white when I got it, I cleaned off the paint to find they were badly pitted and had been sanded flat, so I knew it'd cost a fortune for rechrome.   I'd just redone another whole car.   Found a reasonable driver set for very good price, like $75 for pair.   There's more '60s than '58s so should be available.   But that was a few years ago, and I searched for '58 chrome yesterday and prices have skyrocketed mostly.   
The other option would be for you to do the re-surface work.   You'd have to sand off the chrome and pits and fill with pot metal filler(Muggyweld - Propane torch will do - which isn't inexpensive either because it's got silver in it), sand that smooth to 4-6oo grit then send to a good chromer.   Pays your money and takes your choice.