Fogey1

Came across this last night.

VDO Clock source:
http://www.etbinstruments.com/VDO_Price_List.htm

Erik N

I know we are talking clocks here, but in case someone gets over-zealous...

I repainted all the gauges on a '68 Cougar once. The weight of the paint screwed up the tachometer reading really badly. I had to go back in and strip off the paint for it to read over 2000RPM.

Lesson is don't paint a tach. I bet the speedo on a 928 would suffer also, as it is also electric.

Nicole

I ended-up sanding off the white color from the underside of the hands, and painted them with Italian Red model paint from the hobby store.

Since the material of the hands is clear, they still illuminate as designed.

Randy V

No idea what you are talking about.

Bottom of the hands?

Nicole

The underside of the hands.

Randy V

Why?

UncleMaz

It seems like this is handled but, here is what someone who did my VW gauges used. He restores VDO gauges. Here is my post from another thread (with pics): https://rennlist.com/forums/8210764-post10.html

He uses Plasti-kote brand, Orange Glow is the color & B27 is the color code. He said it looks good day or night. He said the trick is that it has to be done in one stroke with enough paint on the brush but not enough to drip. It thickens fast so if you back stroke it will not be smooth.

Nicole

If you just paint the top and sides of the hands, you lose its illumination. Without the numbers backlit as in the instruments, you then have very little illumination left in the clock. That makes it unnecessarily hard to read.

So, my question is: Why not? Why not do it right?

shadowknight

Nicole can you post a picture of what your clock looks like with the hands illuminated.

shadowknight

Recently I purchased a used analog clock and this post has been very benificial on how I planned on cleaning it up. I recieved it in the usual state that you would find with any used 12year old clock scratched lens and faded hands. Below I have taken some pictures of the process for cleaning it up.

removed the lens by pushing the four tabs on the sides of the clock. hands appear white.

A picture of the lens before polishing

Side view of Hands per (I used a plastic fork as suggested above to remove the minute hand and just pulled the hour hand off without any tools)

This picture shows both hands. The hour hand still has the factory paint which was applied to the bottom of the hand. The minute hand has had the paint removed.

Traces of orange paint were found on the hour hand so originally this clock did have orange hands. I believe Porsche made two variants one with white the other orange.

Novus polish is what I used to strip the paint and polish the lens.

The paint used is Testors orange fluorescent paint (1173) and the small tip brush seen above.



This is the hour hand after painting taken without the flash.

Hands back on the clock

Clock completed with lens back on.

Herman K

Excellent work I have an extra clock on hand that I was going to sell but having seen your example I'm going to re-furbish it.

Well done and thanks for posting the pictures.

Best HK

mpesik

Why not just dip them in somewhat diluted paint.
You need no stinkin brushes!

Nicole

Awesome work, shadowknight!!!

cold_beer839

M. Requin

Yep, it screws them both up. BTDT.