[demonic68]

Hey there guys I was just wondering if there is a correct grill paint for a 68 lemans I have seen them blacked out in my opinion garbage and then just painted silver looks incorrect to me. How or what products are you guys using for the actual factory grill look.

[GTO68FXSTC98]

I used Krylon Fusion in matalic silver and satin black. Painted black, masked the ribs between the fins (PITA). I think the color is damn near spot on.

[demonic68]

Originally Posted by GTO68FXSTC98

I used Krylon Fusion in matalic silver and satin black. Painted black, masked the ribs between the fins (PITA). I think the color is damn near spot on.

I have to agree it looks good thanks for the post

[GTO68FXSTC98]

No problem, looks pretty good on the car to.

[cuz68]

Those look great, About how long did it take you?

[68ragtop]

Originally Posted by GTO68FXSTC98

No problem, looks pretty good on the car to.

Not sure if you noticed, but somebody vandalized your license plate....

[GTO68FXSTC98]

How long to mask? About 2 hours for each side, sat on the couch with the TV on and cut masking tape with a razor. It will save you a lot of time to get 1/4" of less wide tape.

[Greg Reid]

Yeah, you nailed it pretty good on that. Looks very authentic.

[demonic68]

Definitely nailed it one of the best jobs I have seen even better after seeing them mounted in the car

[68ragtop]

So looking at these original painted grills, I can;t help but wonder how they painted these efficiently in a production environment. kinda crazy. seems like it would be easier to paint them silver, then tape them off and add the black.

Gm must have had some sort of template that dropped on the grill to mask off the black areas? pretty crazy when you think about it.

[Keith Seymore]

Not GM, but whoever the outside supplier was. Those parts were already painted when received at the vehicle assembly plant. There is no way they could be painted at GM and maintain a line rate of 60 or 70 jobs per minute. Plus if they were screwed up then you could beat up the supplier .

You are probably right that the silver was painted first, then a (reuseable) mask dropped over the part and the black painted. When I worked in the truck plant two tone vehicles were prepped by painting the secondary color first, taping off the pattern and then spraying the primary color over the top.

[68ragtop]

I'l go scratch at the black to see, but it almost looked like bare plastic, & if it is there is some crazy method that was used. I think they would have looked cool if only the leading edge were painted silver & the flat edges were black.

[68ragtop]

Just took another look. the black is indeed bare plastic. weird. Some of it looks masked off like in the 3rd & 4th(last) picture, but areas like seen in picture #1 #2, it almost looks like the silver was painted on & then blasted off with media or something. That possible?

[68ragtop]

Anybody have pictures of original headlight door covers? mine have been painted over at some point.
The grills I posted pictures of I bought at a swap meet many years ago.
are the cover supposed to be solid silver? Looks a little odd in this picture.

Another interesting thing.... One of my grills has these same two streaks that line up with the
sections of the grill blades. Thought it was nothing until I saw the same thing on this picture.
obviously the paint wears off over time, but I'm thinking it was originally applied thinner in the
areas that are getting so thin.

notice the homemade headlight door adjuster?





original pict:
http://st.hotrod.com/uploads/sites/2...light-door.jpg

[Greg Reid]

I've often wondered how in the world they did that too. Came to the same conclusion, some type of mask.
I can't imagine a good reason to paint the black part since the plastic is already black. It would certainly be easier to mask the black and paint the silver too. You just need something to cover the verticals. Now, the headlight covers would be tougher since only a tiny bit is silver. I've been putting off painting mine for years since the black was painted by someone along the line but it has too much gloss. The flat black 'disappears' much better than gloss.

[68ragtop]

It's funny how in my mind, these details were going to be no big deal to take care of.
I somehow find a way to be kill a bunch of time looking closer when it actually comes time
to do things. So grills should not look like they do in the photo above?

I'll see if I can re-doo that image. I made a link & its blowing up the size of the posts...

EDIT: fixed

[68ragtop]

Whats really mind boggling is how the emblem mount areas stayed black, but detail silver around them. It looks painstaking to do. Can't help but wonder if the headlight doors are missing those little metal travel stop tabs & thats whey the taped up piece of wood is stuck in there. Can't see where it would do much good otherwise. those picts are from google images BTW.

[Greg Reid]

The center grille on that pic looks original to me. The doors look repainted. The bottom portion seems to have been repainted a second time at some point with Testor's silver or something like that.

[68ragtop]

I would agree, the doors do not match at all. So are the doors supposed to have a silver recessed edge, then black background with silver on all edges of the fins?

That would be fairly easy to duplicate. the silver background looks very wrong.

I was able to see silver on the fins on my original doors, but they were spray bombed at some point, so they are not much good for a reference. I might carefully glass bead blast them to see what's under the black.

[Greg Reid]

Originally Posted by 68ragtop

I would agree, the doors do not match at all. So are the doors supposed to have a silver recessed edge, then black background with silver on all edges of the fins?

That's my impression...although, I'd say more than the edge on the fins. I'd say the entire fin should be silver and appear to float in the black. The black should kind of disappear with the fins 'floating'. That way, they look just like the open areas between the fins on the inner grilles.
That's what I THINK.
In other words, I would say the patterns in the attached pics are correct, just the wrong paint. Silver should be a more subdued argent and the black on the doors is not black enough...They look kind of faded to grayish...but where they are black and where they are silver is correct.