Reply To: How can I get a custom hammertone finish?

[phil]

I found that I have a midge in a gold color. it isn’t’ red like that. I think the paint is original and that one doesn’t’ seem to be hammertone but the paint does have a teeny bit of texture.
I don’t think they look as nice with the knobs the same color anyway. sometimes if they are cracked and repaired with bondo and things I can see painting reapired ones, and just painting the brown knobs the ivory color.

sometimes when there are chunks missing you kind of need to repaint. I guess you could imitate the Bakelite color but at that point , with the rainbow models , they are pretty common so I wouldn’t loose sleep. the three knob models are more scarce

sometimes I find broken ones and with the more common models I think it would be possible to take a mold off a good one and then use that as a form to pour in place an epoxy or bondo repair. Easier than trying to shape missing parts of the cabinet. I haven’t tried this but I am fairly sire it can be successful , you just need two radios and use the good one to make the mold of the bad sections of the broken one..

another thing that interests me is trying to make a mold of an whole cabinet, maybe using fiberglass with a mold release, then using colored epoxies to make simulated catalin ones.. Its possible to have fun with some of the dropped ones you spot at sales for not much cost. . boats are often copied like this , you can use fiberglass to take a mold off a fiberglass boat and then use that to make copies of the boat.

I’m not usually too crazy about modifying antiques but If’s a fairly common bakelite and it’s all cracked then maybe any attempt at salvage is ok.. It would be wrong from a restorationis view to make fake catalin cabinets but I could see making a neat cabinet by swirling two different colors of epoxy resin together. If one were to go to the cost and effort to make a mold of the rainbow would be a good one because broken ones aren’t too scarce and so if it worked one could make a few of them. they are also a pleasing design.