Olympus-OM
[Top] [All Lists]

[OM] Painting metal cameras

Subject: [OM] Painting metal cameras
From: Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 12:37:41 -0400
At 5:31 AM +0000 5/12/02, olympus-digest wrote:
>Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 10:46:18 -0400
>From: Ed Senior <newshawk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: [OM] Touching-up black finish
>
>Is it possible to touch up the black finish on camera bodies?  If so, 
>what would you recommend for a good touch up paint?

In general, the best paint one can buy for metal surfaces is automotive paint, 
which is widely available in auto-parts and auto-body repair stores, in a wide 
variety of colors, including Hearse Black. Also available are suitable 
chromate-conversion-coating chemicals, primers, sprayers for small jobs, etc.

The best approach is to remove the metal part from the camera, wet-sand all 
surfaces to be painted, towel dry, allow to dry in the Sun for an hour, 
spray-paint the part in three thin coats with air-drying periods between, 
followed after a few days air drying with a few hours baking in a toaster over 
at 200 degrees farenheit.  Don't hurry to the baking step, or the paint will 
bubble.

If the old paint is really bad, it may be best to use a methylene-chloride 
based paint stripper to remove all the paint, and start from scratch.

For touch-up, automobile dealers sell little bottles and spraycans of touch-up 
paint, so look for a car with paint that matches the camera, and buy that 
color.  The brushable touch-up paint may need to be thinned with whatever 
solvent the paint manufacturer recommends for that paint, most likely a solvent 
like acetone or toluol.  It's critical to use a compatible solvent.

Automotive paints can be quite glossy, so some experiments with mixing in a 
little ultra-flat black paint may be in order.  The paints being mixed must 
have compatible solvents, or the result will be a curdled mess.

Joe Gwinn

OT Story:  Twenty years ago I bought a new hose reel to store garden hoses near 
the outside faucet.  The reel is a half-cylinder made of steel that was painted 
with a bad quality of ugly green paint.  I stripped it all off, right down to 
the bare steel, then used automotive chromate- conversion coating followed by 
three or four coats of automotive red primer, air dryed for two days, then 
baked in the kitchen oven at 200 degrees for four hours.  (It didn't smell that 
bad as it baked, but I would do it first and seek forgiveness later.)  
Rust-Oleum red primer would have also worked.  The red primer was almost 
exactly the color of the house, so I left it at that.  The hose reel has been 
in service ever since, and shows no sign of rust or wearthrough of the paint 
film.  Joe


< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
  • [OM] Painting metal cameras, Joe Gwinn <=
Sponsored by Tako
Impressum | Datenschutz