Need help with a horn finish project

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RSStone
Victor O
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Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 4:16 pm

Need help with a horn finish project

Post by RSStone »

New to the forum, this is actually my first post, I'm Scott, and have been restoring phonograph and record players for about a year, restored antique furniture for a few years prior to that... My question is about re-finishing a horn. I've already done several with black paint, a couple of greens and 1 red, they were all pretty simple and straightforward, just prep and paint... Yesterday a client brought in a blue horn, sort of a metallic looking finish, I had a yellow/gold one a few months ago that was just a soft cleaning and clearcoat to preserve, that client said he'd been told that that type of finishing was a lost art and nobody did it these days, This client wants it done no matter what, so here I am, looking for a starting point. Anyone ever re-finished one? I'll attach a picture of a similar horn here and get fresh pics on here tomorrow, thanks in advance for any info.
Attachments
random internet pic of a similar horn
random internet pic of a similar horn
blue horn.jpg (52.15 KiB) Viewed 2846 times

RSStone
Victor O
Posts: 93
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Re: Need help with a horn finish project

Post by RSStone »

Answering my own question, just talked with another restorer and he recommended this

Dupli-Color METALCAST Anodized Color MC201

Said it's almost an exact match for the old style... Going to try it out and post before and after pics when I get to work on it.

VanEpsFan1914
Victor VI
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Personal Text: I've got both kinds of music--classical & rag-time.
Location: South Carolina

Re: Need help with a horn finish project

Post by VanEpsFan1914 »

Oh, please do!

I have a similar Columbia horn in red. An attempt to restore it ended up with bubbling silver paint & me covered in homemade red shellac/dye mix...looked like I had just perpetrated an ax murder. I was right on the verge of deciding to give up & go with wood-grain, instead of repainting it original red...it's the last piece for a machine I'm restoring.



Glad you're taking the time to research this.

RSStone
Victor O
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Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 4:16 pm

Re: Need help with a horn finish project

Post by RSStone »

Finally got the horn up in rotation and finished the base coat and gold striping, still waiting on artist to paint the flowers inside. Customer likes the color and look, what do you folks think?
b and a horn.jpg
striped on horn.JPG
Last edited by RSStone on Fri Jul 26, 2019 9:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

RSStone
Victor O
Posts: 93
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 4:16 pm

Re: Need help with a horn finish project

Post by RSStone »

VanEpsFan1914 wrote:Oh, please do!

I have a similar Columbia horn in red. An attempt to restore it ended up with bubbling silver paint & me covered in homemade red shellac/dye mix...looked like I had just perpetrated an ax murder. I was right on the verge of deciding to give up & go with wood-grain, instead of repainting it original red...it's the last piece for a machine I'm restoring.



Glad you're taking the time to research this.


They have a nice Red, MC 200 is the duplicolor metalcast code... I bought the base/groundcoat as well, cleaned and polished the horn as much as possible, and did a few test sprays on a scrap piece of sheet metal to figure out just how dense I wanted the blue. Best of luck and would love to see yours finished if you go this route !

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Steve Levi
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Re: Need help with a horn finish project

Post by Steve Levi »

What an improvement, good job! Thanks for sharing. Steve L.

VanEpsFan1914
Victor VI
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Personal Text: I've got both kinds of music--classical & rag-time.
Location: South Carolina

Re: Need help with a horn finish project

Post by VanEpsFan1914 »

Yours looks like an original!

Mine didn't. I used a red single-stage paint, not clear, and got a good solid red color. Right now it's at a local artist and should be painted but she's always gadding about out of town, and I can't meet back up with her, and then the little Graphophone that the horn came off of decides to fling its governor to bits.

So while the jury's out on mine, yours is a fine-looking piece of equipment!

RSStone
Victor O
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Re: Need help with a horn finish project

Post by RSStone »

Thanks guys, I really like this one too and I'm glad it worked out and Happy to share info. If anyone does this I would definitely recommend buying 2 cans of your color and two of the base/ground coat and practice on some sheet metal because you can vary the shade and depth of color, plus timing is VERY particular and important. I took the horn down to bare metal with wire wheel and brushes, followed by coarse scotch-brite followed by 0000 steel wool and then wiped with thinner and allowed to dry 2 hours in the sun. After it reached room temp again I went by the label... I would also recommend doing the inside 100% first and allowing to dry 24 hours, taping and papering off and then finishing the outside and allowing to dry for another 24 hours before gold striping. I'm looking forward to a Yellow soon, have a Red on the list coming up so will get pics of it if I can do the same thing...

RSStone
Victor O
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Almost finished

Post by RSStone »

I'd say I have The Artist for the flowers, what do y'all think?
inside b n a.jpg

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Lucius1958
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Re: Almost finished

Post by Lucius1958 »

RSStone wrote:I'd say I have The Artist for the flowers, what do y'all think?
inside b n a.jpg
Not bad!

Bill

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