Info needed: Ford Instrument Cluster- Correct Gold Colour

[Jacques Reed]

Good Day,

Revisited this recently. I wanted to get as close a colour match before reassembling the cluster. I also looked at other thirties Ford car instrument clusters as I would imagine Ford would not have changed the gold colour in the pre war years.

Looked at about a dozen gold colours, automotive and hardware brands. Narrowed it down to these three. Many automotive golds were too reddish in colour or too light a shade of gold.

As half-predicted the Rust-Oleum looks the closest allowing for aging of the original gold paint. Dupli-Color Goldrush is a bit too yellow. White Knight is an Australian branch of the U.S. PPG company and is is too bright.

The test sample sadly is the fascia I spent a few hours refinishing; primed, spray puttied and wet sanded a few times. The strip brass patches I soldered behind the fascia to fill the holes, as thin as they were, were too thick to allow the bezel to properly seal. Kindly Euan McDonald supplied me with a good restorable one, free of extra holes.

Plan to spray that with Rust-Oleum next nice day- whenever that occurs this winter.

Bet I'm not the first person to spend hours restoring something only to find their efforts were for nought.

Hope this is of some interest.