Gordo's Hood Emblem / Crest / Badge - Refinishing to Black & Silver

[Gordo2]

Ever since I refinished my Fuchs center caps to black & silver (wow, I'm an old timer - found my thread from 2006... Fuchs Center Cap Finish), I've wanted to do the same with my hood emblem.

I recently purchased a used hood emblem (in the 1994 & up style I preferred) with intent to refinish it in black & silver - but couldn't bring myself to hack an emblem that was in much better shape than the one currently on my car.

As such, I opted to remove my original, 1983 hood emblem and refinish it in black & silver and mounted the newer emblem in it's place for now.

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Hood Emblem Refinish Process

This is the original hood emblem - weathered from over 250k miles of joy, a few miles (collectively) of slight terror, and a few easily forgettable and forgivable moments of despair:



My first attempt to strip the emblem down to bare metal using my HF soda blaster - failed .



Those acrylic inlays survived 250k + miles of everything the nasty roads could toss at them - 100 psi of soda didn't stand a chance...

No problem, heat has a tendency to persuade - lets attempt to remove the acrylic with a propane torch, but that failed too:


Did you realize the mounting pins are soldered onto the emblem? I didn't, but do now:


Still averse to any real, manual effort I decided to bring it to a place where I have access to a sand blaster with glass bead media - BINGO, 2 minutes of blasting was all it took:



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Stay tuned - next step, I will polish the raised areas of the emblem.


To be continued...

Gordo

[Uwon]

You got my attention.
Cheers,
Johan

[rothaus]

I did the same, bead blasted it, filled in with black paint. After that, I sanded the surface so that all was smooth, and coated with clear coat.

As you can see, it's not silver, but I like the look of it on my car.

[rothaus]

One more thing: Before you do any thing else, solder those pins back on.

[76dno]

@rothaus great job - looks really good on your black targa. thx for sharing

[Gordo2]

Originally Posted by rothaus

One more thing: Before you do any thing else, solder those pins back on.

Your emblem looks great - thanks for the inspiration.

And good recommendation on getting the pins remounted before I apply paint - done...





Gordo

[Gordo2]

Not really related to my effort to refinish my hood emblem - but I found this video, which I thought was pretty cool and motivating:


Porsche Emblem Casting


Gordo

[Gordo2]

OK, video aside and back to reality - I did some more work on the emblem today.

Important BLUF Note: my emblem did not polish out to a silver finish as I had expected. Instead it turned out with a bronze colored finish, similar to Rothaus's emblem. I believe this is simply the color of the emblem metal, and not a coating as I had assumed. Although I think it looks great in bronze, I will continue looking into how some refinished emblems achieve a silver finish...

Polishing, Painting and Restoring / Refinishing Porsche Hood Emblem - Crest

I used 3" pads on a pneumatic HF orbital sander to wet-polish the emblem:



I started with an 800 grit pad, which is pretty mild - I wasn't sure how soft the emblem material was and wanted to avoid accidentally removing too much of the raised areas

Wet sanding with the 800 grit worked well to remove and polish casting imperfections.

Initial sanding exposed rather pitted surfaces:



I progressed through 2,000 / 5,000 and 10,000 grit sanding pads to get to a point where the raised surfaces were ready for a polishing compound:


After buffing the raised surfaces with the 3" orbital using a sponge pad & compound - I scrubbed it with soapy water, and cleaned it with acetone for paint prep.

I sprayed it with Rust-Oleum satin black (Important Note / Tip - it's very easy to apply too much paint - start spraying very lightly, 10 to 12 inches from the emblem :


As the paint began to set, I proceeded to wipe the raised surfaces with Q-tips that were dipped in acetone and wrung of excess moisture between my finger tips:


With my first spray and wipe, it seemed I removed some paint in the recessed areas. As such, I decided to re-spray and concentrate more on the precision of my wipe down of the raised areas, and came away with this:


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Debating if I should hit it with a clear coat...

Gordo

[timmy2]

Have you seen this thread?
I purchased the black silver version years ago.
Still looks great.
https://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-used-parts-sale-wanted/644355-refinished-oem-black-hood-crests-badges-8.html

[MichaelSJackson]

Actually, I liked the attempt where you stated...

"With my first spray and wipe, it seemed I removed some paint in the recessed areas."

... It had an antique, tarnished look. I thought that was very appealing.

[Gordo2]

Originally Posted by timmy2

Have you seen this thread?
I purchased the black silver version years ago. Still looks great.
https://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-used-parts-sale-wanted/644355-refinished-oem-black-hood-crests-badges-8.html

Yep, I've seen that thread and their Facebook site (I think its related...) - they make some very nice emblems. I didn't realize that the silver finished emblems were actually re-plated in nickel vice stripped and polished...

Feeds into a reoccurring obsession I often encounter: wanting to get into electro-coating...

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Originally Posted by MichaelSJackson

Actually, I liked the attempt where you stated...
"With my first spray and wipe, it seemed I removed some paint in the recessed areas."
... It had an antique, tarnished look. I thought that was very appealing.

Thanks - I really liked it too, and debated mounting it that way, but it wasn't what I was shooting for so I moved forward.

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So I attempted to mount the emblem this evening and found I stink at soldering - one of the pins broke loose. I'm trying to remount with JB Weld - will see how that goes.

[Gordo2]

The emblem turned out awesome - but the metal was not the silver color I was expecting / shooting for. Seems the original metal has a bronze tint:



So, there's only one thing I can do at this point - go overboard and buy the stuff needed to DIY nickel plate my emblem (after re-stripping...).

Over the past 10 or so years I've toyed with the idea of electroplating - this little project pushed me over the edge.

Youtube and Amazon made it all look too easy & affordable, so I ordered a DC power supply and a few nickel anodes.



I mean really - who doesn't like to play with electrodes that are submersed in fluids and dip stuff into hydrochloric acid?

More to follow...

Gordo


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BTW, my wife did point out that it would be cheaper to just buy the emblem I want. "Yea... come on honey, you know that's just not how I work"

[rwest]

Your wife is right, it would be cheaper to buy one, but you already know how to use a credit card and the internet; this is another skill and knowledge set to add to your abilities and keep your mind sharp.

Good luck

[cabmandone]

LOL I knew you'd end up trying your hand at plating! That's why I told you I'd send it out and have someone else do it. I knew you'd do the opposite of what I suggested. AWESOME! Now I can get stuff done for free!!

[Uwon]

Stunning. If you don’t like it, I would be really, really happy to exchange you for a couple of my used ones all postage included. That emblem would look really stunning and subtle on my new project.
Serious offer!……..
Cheers,
Johan

[Dpmulvan]

To make nickel sulfite take nickel battery strips or 99% pure nickel, put in a glass jar, 3 parts hydrogen peroxide 1 part battery acid. Let nickel sit overnight until dissolved.
Now you have a concentrate, dilute with distilled water until light blue. Much cheaper than buying caswell.

[Dpmulvan]

Almost forgot don’t breath fumes or your wife will be selling your car on BAT

[Gordo2]

Thanks to China and Amazon, I'm now equipped to nickel plate stuff...

Nickel Plating Solution: I made some nickel electrolyte (sulfite?) per online / Youtube instructions: (2) 1"x6" strips of silver sheet (anode and cathode) immersed in white vinegar connected to DC power supply (~20v and ~3.5A). Took ~ 2 hours to get a good green / teal electrolyte solution.

I took a little different approach than Dpmulvan suggested (thanks) to make the nickel solution - I used the method that i found most prominent in online tutorials.

Plating Prep: I had already stripped & polished the raised surfaces of the emblem (few hours of effort, hence my PM'd decline of Uwon's tempting offer) so prep was simply ensuring the metal surface was squeaky clean. I opted to dip the emblem in a 50% distilled water / 50% muriatic acid solution to lightly etch & prep for the nickel plating.

After the quick acid bath, I rinsed the emblem in distilled water briefly.

Plating: With the negative DC terminal connected to the emblem, and positive connected to a silver anode immersed in nickel electrolyte - I dipped the emblem into the solution and waved it back & forth for ~5 min and it looked pretty good:



Buffing: Quick buffing of the newly plated nickel surface brought it to a nice shine:



Next - repeat of painting and wiping down the raised surfaces...

Gordo

[cabmandone]

Hey! I thought you said you needed to heat the liquid to 140?

BTW, I'm taking up a collection from other Pelicans to buy some yellow chromate to send your way. I figure we can get most of the stuff I want plated removed from the car, cleaned and prepped and then coated in a weekend... right? See you in the spring!