Cooking time!

As they say on "Breaking Bad" Let's Cook.......

In my earlier posts I had talked about the brass headlights. They were in pretty rough shape, the lights had been covered in a black paint.  The only way to get this thick coat of paint off is to boil the brass lights in water/baking soda so they will expand and lift the paint off. I finally got around to buying a big sixteen quart pot that is just the right size to fit the headlights in. Time to fire up the old BBQ. 

Let the experiment begin!

Above are the pics of the lights before they go into the pot. As you can see the paint has many layers and it looks like a few coats at least.

In goes light number one. For the first round I let the brass boil for about forty minutes. After that I took  the light to my wash basin and scrubbed it with steel wool and a tooth brush. I added a little CLR every once in a while. For the most part the paint peeled right off. The only problem was it was coming off layer by layer. I ended up cleaning one light while boiling the other light switching off every ten minutes. It was a bit frustrating towards the end.

It took a lot of boiling and scrubbing to get the above picture. As you can see almost all the paint is gone, but getting the corners took a lot of patience. Notice the steam coming off the metal.

By the end of the job the water was completely black. Pretty nasty, that's a hundred years of paint and dirt.

Below is the finished product, I am really happy they turned out so good. I did you use a metal polish to get them to shine again! The metal does have a few nicks and scratches, but for a hundred years old I think they look really good.

The inside of the light I am going to paint black. Once I get a light fixture installed I don't want any weird reflections. 

Other News:

I was able to get my hand on original ownership for the car dated 1951. This is a critical piece of paper to get this car restored and on the road. All I have to do is get the car appraised once it's completed so I can transfer the ownership and pay the tax on the appraised value. If I didn't have this ownership I would be in a world of trouble. The short explanation is I would have to provide receipts and original vin numbers if necessary for every part on the car. Its sounds like a very gruelling process. 

It also explains why people sell old car ownerships for $500 on Ebay because without it you could have a lot of headaches and additional costs.

Updates:

No news on the rad, Phillips is still trying to locate some parts so they can give me a final quote. 

Engine Head - Still searching Ebay everyday trying to find a decent one, they are a little hard to come by but I will find one.

Happy St. Patrick's everyone!

Adam