Bill,
With the exorbitant cost of the repro badges, I think it's pretty outrageous
that they don't even fit! Thanks for the explanation of what's going on. It
doesn't solve the problem, but at least now we all know a little more about
what's happening. And I don't think these are brass. They appear to be pot
metal -- and break just as easily as pot metal. A pity. By the way, I love
your hope-inspiring business slogan: "just what you're looking for", but this
makes it the second time that you don't have "what I'm looking for". Oh
well!
Cheers!
Jeff
----- Original Message -----
From: William Davies
To: Jeff McNeal ; Joe Curry ; Andre Rousseau
Cc: spitfires@autox.team.net
Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2002 1:39 PM
Subject: Re: Badging blues
----- Original Message -----
From: Jeff McNeal <jmcneal@ohms.com>
> someone contacted me offlist with a reasonable question. How do I know my
> badge holes are original? The original old badges (which have since gone
> away) were on the lid when I bought it, and, like the rest of the car, I
took
> the lid down to bare metal, so there's really no question that the lid is
> right, but the repro badges are wrong...
Hi Jeff,
The problem with many of the repro badges (particularly the cast script
types) is that the reproductions are re-cast from originals by a lost wax
(also known as investment casting) method. The process invoves cleaning and
repairing the original to an acceptable standard, using this to produce a
rubber mould from which a wax replica is made, then the wax badge is set in a
kind of cement (called investment). Once the investment is set, the wax is
burned out in an oven and the now empty investment is cast into in metal,
usually a bronze of some kind. There are several weaknesses to this process.
Firstly, cleaning up an original badge often results in loss of definition -
this is not a problem if an original NOS badge can be found, but often that is
not the case. The other problem which you are having is that there is inherent
shrinkage when each material is cast - firstly the wax and secondly the metal.
As far as I am aware most RTV moulding rubbers and the investment are p!
retty stable from a shrinkage viewpoint. This means that the 'new' badge
will be slightly reduced in size compared to the original, with any mounting
lugs consequently closer together and no longer aligning with the fixing
holes.
I know this doesn't exactly help with your problem, but hopefully it
will at least explain why the badges don't fit. My interest in all this? Well
I think there's a market for well made replica badging.......
Cheers,
Bill.
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