Painting emblems using lacquer paint and a hypodermic syringe

[kingstrider]

I've seen a few threads here about repainting emblems but nothing with photos showing how to do so thought I'd share. Over the years I've owned a number of classic cars and have tried most methods when refinishing emblems. Brushing with enamels usually turns out okay but the paint isn't very durable over time and is hard to eliminate brush strokes. Spraying can look really nice but masking is a total pain. By far the easiest method I've found is using lacquer paints and a hypodermic syringe, here's how.

While repairing and repainting the inner fenders on my 72, I thought I'd remove and repaint the worn emblems. Since the outer fenders are still on the truck, I had to get creative and modify one of my wrenches to reach the little nuts on the back side. Its amazing how much dirt these things trap under them.





Materials are pretty basic and include some commercial paint stripper, a toothbrush for scrubbing, safety glasses, rubber gloves (not shown), reading glasses or magnification (if required), a hypodermic syringe and needle, and lacquer paint, otherwise known as nail polish. The good thing about nail polish is it comes in a great variety of colors, many of which are suitable for projects such as this. The only hard thing to find is the needle and syringe but dentists use these routinely for irrigating root canals with NaClO or sodium hypocholorite, a bleach solution. I get them at the office but your dentist will probably give you a couple if you ask nicely.


Since my original emblems were pitted, I found some driver quality replacements on the board. All remaining paint was removed using the stripper and then neutralized with water.



When dry, the emblems were placed on my workbench by drilling holes to clear the studs and using a few q-tips to make sure they were perfectly level. That way the paint will flow out evenly across the surface.



For the white, I chose Maybelline Color Show 380 which was mixed and placed in the syringe. This was simply flowed into place, using the needle to manipulate it as little as possible. As long as your emblems are on a flat surface, the paint flows out very well by gravity alone. This is very similar to cloisonné in that capillary action causes the paint to flow within the recesses of the emblem. I also tend to use plenty of color, that way I don't have to go back and add a second coat later. Afterwards, the emblems were covered to keep dust off and allowed to dry overnight.





For the red, I bought two colors but wound up going with the lighter of the two, Maybelline Color Show 250. I wound up reusing my original Super emblems and had a couple of boo-boos but a little acetone (aka nail polish remover) cleaned them up once the paint was dry.




Once everything was finished, I simply put the emblems back on the truck as shown. In retrospect I think the red is a little dark but looks pretty good to me. Best of all I'm running OEM emblems and not imported repops or expensive NOS parts which is fine for a driver. Like I said, I've tried most methods but have found this gives a very nice result without a lot of effort.