First off, I got a Conion/Technisonic TC-999!! Supergrail radio I managed to score off Rambo Estrada, which he originally bought off Hugo Driptip many years ago. I thought this radio would be on the 'Neeeds List' forever, but all the planets managed to get in alignment for me.
Now, I'd seen lots of photos of these over the years, but I honestly think I only saw about 4 different actual radios in these many photos. The thing I noticed on most of them is that the trims around the six speakers always seemed very dull (on all but MONOLITHICS). Then when going through my brochure scans I found the promo shots of her, and sure enough the surrounds should be a chrome colour. But to my eye, and possibly wishful thinking, the surrounds where a gold/champagne coloured chrome, not straight normal chrome. I decided this was going to be my new challenge.
Here is how she looked, the dull silver trims I wanted to fix up.
Trawling the internet for many hours and viewing lots of forum posts I found there were a few gold chrome colours available in aerosol cans. Now, as you probably know, the chrome that many aerosol cans say they can achieve is not even close when sprayed. Chromes mainly come out silver and golds even more inconsistent. The chrome effect can be measure by the reflectivity of the finish. If it's not a mirror it's not a chrome.
I went through numerous cans, and had average results and then came across SpazStix Mirror Chrome range. I found the Australian distributor and ordered a couple of cans. At $25 a can and their size about 1/3rd the size of a normal aerosol can this was expensive gear. I set about preparing surfaces and experimenting with their effects. Initial tests were pretty weak. The surface preparation to get a mirror chrome effect meant you needed to basically be spraying on the something the smoothness of glass. Not easy on small plastic fittings. I ended up get pretty reasonable results with the normal Mirror Chrome, but the SpazStix Mirror Chrome Gold that I was putting a lot of faith in seemed almost impossible to get a good result from and the actual 'gold' in the colour was barely any different in colour to the regular mirror chrome. Two wasted cans later I called the distributor and had a bit of a complaint about it and he said I wasn't the first and he'd talked to the manufacturer and they said to use their Candy Gold over the top to bring out more of the gold colour, but it's at the expense of the mirror effect, which was virtually nonexistent on my results. But I ordered another can of Mirror Chrome Gold and Candy Gold and went back to the drawing board.
With more research I found a couple of local businesses that could chrome objects and after going through half a dozen of them found a place in Melbourne that could vac-metallize any plastic. They had a two month waiting list though, but were going to be my main option if my painting experiments failed further.
The Candy Gold and new Mirror Chrome Gold arrived and with a bit more work I got something close to what I wanted. But the Candy Gold added a lot of orange to the colour and the mirror finish seemed to disappear, although the gloss in the candy helped the finish. I started losing faith in being able to do this, two full weekends of painting experiments weren't getting me any closer to achieving anything. So I thought I'd try a different tact.
I contacted a local signwriter who I've dealt with occasionally over the years when I've been needing self adhesive vinyl for other projects. He said he had mirror gold that was completely reflective!! This was very exciting! I paid Matt the signwriter a visit and picked up a few metres of it. The problem was going to be different now. To make it reflective chrome the material used is a mylar which is very thin but also very unconformable. He said anything that isn't flat isn't going to be easy or even possible. When I told him the size and detail in the speaker trims he said I'd be wasting my money, but I thought I was running out of options, and made this my project for the weekend.
As Matt said, the mylar hates going 'around' any relief. This made my job nice and tedious as I now had to cut, apply and trim every panel on each trim to get anything close to a reasonably clean job. This is why I bought an excessive amount of the gold mylar as I knew I'd be wasting a lot through experimentation. I got my first trim done and studied it carefully. There were new problems now.
There were some parts of the surrounds that were physically impossible to apply the mylar to. Namely the concentric rings on the insides of the big trims and also the outside edges that join the 'ring' of the surround to 'flat' part. No amount of techniques worked.. back to the drawing board.
I thought I'd try something to see if it was workable. I figured I'd try painting the problem surfaces and then hope the surrounding chrome would 'hide' it's non-reflectivity. I sprayed the surrounds with the Mirror Chrome Gold and when dry, gave it a thin layer of the Candy Gold top coat. Once the mylar was applied it blended almost flawlessly! I had renewed faith I could actually do this now, as all previous attempts had been entirely soul-destroying affairs.
All speaker trims and knobs were then sprayed and then the twelve hour job of applying all the mylar started. Thankfully this got easier the more I repeated surfaces and I ended up making some templates that made the job easier, and I became more of a perfectionist with how the mylar fitted. Often getting a trim all done, then removing most of it and trying again to get it right. The rectangular tweeter trims required a lot of trial and error to get the angles covered properly.
But late last night I finished enough to see how one side looked. I mounted them up and checked it out. It was more 'hmmm' than 'Awesome!!' and I began to doubt the gold colour was working. I managed to convince myself it was cool, but sent a pm off to Ira Redbenjoe to ask his opinion.
Heres the gold mylar on the trims:
His response was, in basic terms, that he hated it. The gold was way too strong. I thought originally 'prrfft, silly old bugger' but I put more thought into it and decided I could do better. This radio was worth all this effort and I wanted to give it my all. I stopped work for the night and sat back and thought about what I could do. I ended up leaving it and went to bed pretty dejected. I knew Ira was right, it just wasn't going to work, the gold was way too strong.
This morning I had an epiphany. I awoke with the idea of combining finishes. In my head, it worked, but I tested it out and to my complete elation the effect was PERFECT. The remedy? Once the trims were finished in the gold mylar they are then sprayed with the SpazStix Mirror Chrome Gold. The effect is the champagne/gold. But what makes it work is the solid gold colour underneath. On it's own the paint is dull and very un-gold. When sprayed over the gold reflective mylar it allows the gold to shine through while adding a layer of mirror finish. It achieves the exact effect I was after. I quick PM to Ira and he gives me the thumbs up too. Finally.. after days of research and many, many hours of experimenting I got it.
So how does it look?
It looks like this:
I'm really pleased with this result. It was a long, hard road. But the challenge was met with hot rockin' tenacity!! This is the best result I can get without going to a vac-metallizer, I'll see how it wears over the next couple of weeks and then decide if I'll go that route or keep her how she is. Time will tell.
More pix to follow in the Collection section, soon as there's some sun outside.
Rock On.
Now, I'd seen lots of photos of these over the years, but I honestly think I only saw about 4 different actual radios in these many photos. The thing I noticed on most of them is that the trims around the six speakers always seemed very dull (on all but MONOLITHICS). Then when going through my brochure scans I found the promo shots of her, and sure enough the surrounds should be a chrome colour. But to my eye, and possibly wishful thinking, the surrounds where a gold/champagne coloured chrome, not straight normal chrome. I decided this was going to be my new challenge.
Here is how she looked, the dull silver trims I wanted to fix up.
Trawling the internet for many hours and viewing lots of forum posts I found there were a few gold chrome colours available in aerosol cans. Now, as you probably know, the chrome that many aerosol cans say they can achieve is not even close when sprayed. Chromes mainly come out silver and golds even more inconsistent. The chrome effect can be measure by the reflectivity of the finish. If it's not a mirror it's not a chrome.
I went through numerous cans, and had average results and then came across SpazStix Mirror Chrome range. I found the Australian distributor and ordered a couple of cans. At $25 a can and their size about 1/3rd the size of a normal aerosol can this was expensive gear. I set about preparing surfaces and experimenting with their effects. Initial tests were pretty weak. The surface preparation to get a mirror chrome effect meant you needed to basically be spraying on the something the smoothness of glass. Not easy on small plastic fittings. I ended up get pretty reasonable results with the normal Mirror Chrome, but the SpazStix Mirror Chrome Gold that I was putting a lot of faith in seemed almost impossible to get a good result from and the actual 'gold' in the colour was barely any different in colour to the regular mirror chrome. Two wasted cans later I called the distributor and had a bit of a complaint about it and he said I wasn't the first and he'd talked to the manufacturer and they said to use their Candy Gold over the top to bring out more of the gold colour, but it's at the expense of the mirror effect, which was virtually nonexistent on my results. But I ordered another can of Mirror Chrome Gold and Candy Gold and went back to the drawing board.
With more research I found a couple of local businesses that could chrome objects and after going through half a dozen of them found a place in Melbourne that could vac-metallize any plastic. They had a two month waiting list though, but were going to be my main option if my painting experiments failed further.
The Candy Gold and new Mirror Chrome Gold arrived and with a bit more work I got something close to what I wanted. But the Candy Gold added a lot of orange to the colour and the mirror finish seemed to disappear, although the gloss in the candy helped the finish. I started losing faith in being able to do this, two full weekends of painting experiments weren't getting me any closer to achieving anything. So I thought I'd try a different tact.
I contacted a local signwriter who I've dealt with occasionally over the years when I've been needing self adhesive vinyl for other projects. He said he had mirror gold that was completely reflective!! This was very exciting! I paid Matt the signwriter a visit and picked up a few metres of it. The problem was going to be different now. To make it reflective chrome the material used is a mylar which is very thin but also very unconformable. He said anything that isn't flat isn't going to be easy or even possible. When I told him the size and detail in the speaker trims he said I'd be wasting my money, but I thought I was running out of options, and made this my project for the weekend.
As Matt said, the mylar hates going 'around' any relief. This made my job nice and tedious as I now had to cut, apply and trim every panel on each trim to get anything close to a reasonably clean job. This is why I bought an excessive amount of the gold mylar as I knew I'd be wasting a lot through experimentation. I got my first trim done and studied it carefully. There were new problems now.
There were some parts of the surrounds that were physically impossible to apply the mylar to. Namely the concentric rings on the insides of the big trims and also the outside edges that join the 'ring' of the surround to 'flat' part. No amount of techniques worked.. back to the drawing board.
I thought I'd try something to see if it was workable. I figured I'd try painting the problem surfaces and then hope the surrounding chrome would 'hide' it's non-reflectivity. I sprayed the surrounds with the Mirror Chrome Gold and when dry, gave it a thin layer of the Candy Gold top coat. Once the mylar was applied it blended almost flawlessly! I had renewed faith I could actually do this now, as all previous attempts had been entirely soul-destroying affairs.
All speaker trims and knobs were then sprayed and then the twelve hour job of applying all the mylar started. Thankfully this got easier the more I repeated surfaces and I ended up making some templates that made the job easier, and I became more of a perfectionist with how the mylar fitted. Often getting a trim all done, then removing most of it and trying again to get it right. The rectangular tweeter trims required a lot of trial and error to get the angles covered properly.
But late last night I finished enough to see how one side looked. I mounted them up and checked it out. It was more 'hmmm' than 'Awesome!!' and I began to doubt the gold colour was working. I managed to convince myself it was cool, but sent a pm off to Ira Redbenjoe to ask his opinion.
Heres the gold mylar on the trims:
His response was, in basic terms, that he hated it. The gold was way too strong. I thought originally 'prrfft, silly old bugger' but I put more thought into it and decided I could do better. This radio was worth all this effort and I wanted to give it my all. I stopped work for the night and sat back and thought about what I could do. I ended up leaving it and went to bed pretty dejected. I knew Ira was right, it just wasn't going to work, the gold was way too strong.
This morning I had an epiphany. I awoke with the idea of combining finishes. In my head, it worked, but I tested it out and to my complete elation the effect was PERFECT. The remedy? Once the trims were finished in the gold mylar they are then sprayed with the SpazStix Mirror Chrome Gold. The effect is the champagne/gold. But what makes it work is the solid gold colour underneath. On it's own the paint is dull and very un-gold. When sprayed over the gold reflective mylar it allows the gold to shine through while adding a layer of mirror finish. It achieves the exact effect I was after. I quick PM to Ira and he gives me the thumbs up too. Finally.. after days of research and many, many hours of experimenting I got it.
So how does it look?
It looks like this:
I'm really pleased with this result. It was a long, hard road. But the challenge was met with hot rockin' tenacity!! This is the best result I can get without going to a vac-metallizer, I'll see how it wears over the next couple of weeks and then decide if I'll go that route or keep her how she is. Time will tell.
More pix to follow in the Collection section, soon as there's some sun outside.
Rock On.
.
. Amazing 
it looks like it should, respect rick 