The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Is there a good thread or article somewhere about painting a horn? My girlfriend helped me paint a flower on my horn yesterday, and it looks okay... but it doesnt really look 3D like a morning glory horn.

I am painting a searchlight horn, which has all the ridges on the inside. So any tips or anything would be great

David

The paint I would use to make it pop is Krylon Dupli Color Metalcast, just GOOGLE it.

Look up single-brush painting. That is the original technique they used back in the day to get the flowers into horns and there are videos of the process on YouTube. It certainly takes patience and practice.

I've posted other pictures of this machine before. The main painting is not exactly historically correct (as in, the composition is more like a still-life than the traditional circular pattern of flowers) but the single-brush technique is. Paints used were modern waterproof acrylics that were a close approximation to the colors of the era as drawn from originals--and of course, an artist helped with this restoration; I didn't do the flowers!

Yeah I would love if the flowers turned out like that!

Ill look it for sure... out of curiosity Charles. How far away are you from me? I would be interested in having the lady that did your horn do mine!

Well, it's right at 500 miles between where you're at and where I'm at, so that's going to be a hassle to ship a large horn unless you want to make a couple trips to South Carolina. And the paint job did cost me $150 (except I traded a small Oxford hornless phonograph, like a tiny Grafonola lidless; we thought that would be an appropriate deal.)

The painting should be a technique you could learn. Notice how each petal of the roses has those little stripes to them. That's not separate paint--the whole point of "single-brush" is to paint like that and it be easier than it looks.

After owning one original flowered horn, I was not sure how to plan for a new one; the artist saw some vintage ones and said she couldn't paint that badly. So modern flowered horns often turn out looking different because they were made by perfectionists. Basically if you mess up a little, it's probably OK.

Now for a Searchlight horn I would be wondering if it's even historically appropriate to paint flowers in them. Most of what I have seen has a sort of two-toned effect and perhaps some light striping on the outside edge and whatnot. I've seen Searchlights made to look like a giant tulip at a distance, but never with little flowers painted inside.

VanEpsFan1914 wrote:Well, it's right at 500 miles between where you're at and where I'm at, so that's going to be a hassle to ship a large horn unless you want to make a couple trips to South Carolina. And the paint job did cost me $150 (except I traded a small Oxford hornless phonograph, like a tiny Grafonola lidless; we thought that would be an appropriate deal.)

The painting should be a technique you could learn. Notice how each petal of the roses has those little stripes to them. That's not separate paint--the whole point of "single-brush" is to paint like that and it be easier than it looks.

After owning one original flowered horn, I was not sure how to plan for a new one; the artist saw some vintage ones and said she couldn't paint that badly. So modern flowered horns often turn out looking different because they were made by perfectionists. Basically if you mess up a little, it's probably OK.

Now for a Searchlight horn I would be wondering if it's even historically appropriate to paint flowers in them. Most of what I have seen has a sort of two-toned effect and perhaps some light striping on the outside edge and whatnot. I've seen Searchlights made to look like a giant tulip at a distance, but never with little flowers painted inside.

I am really still unsure what to do at the moment. Maybe I will wait for a more appropriate horn to do flowers. I really like the idea of a solid white horn with gold stripes and a gold rim. I know it wont be original, but I really like the way the white looks.