I believe Jon's got it right guys. I’ve seen the attention to detail that he puts into a project and for that reason I listen to him when he speaks. If you look closely at the hammertone paint used on the interiors of the Art Deco's you will notice that although it appears to be heavily textured in reality tactilely it is smooth. The variation is only visual do to the contrast in tone.
An example easier to find for most of us is the finish on all of the later Advance Design heaters. The silver or light bronze hammertone paints used on them also appear to be heavily textured but again are smooth to the touch with a variation in the tone only.
I’ve tried all of the commonly available hammertone paints that are on the market today, i.e. Hammertone brand and Rustoleum and there is no way that I can see of getting the pebbled texture that they produce out of the finish. I’ve tried thinning but you loose the hammered appearance, I’ve tried spraying a wet base of matching smooth paint then the hammered paint immediately over it and that doesn’t work. I’ve tried mixing the hammered paint with smooth bases and spraying that and that doesn’t work. I read somewhere that the modern hammertone paints have silicone in the formula, which causes the separation of the paint giving the hammered effect but can’t verify that. As is the case with ALL of the special textured appearing paints used through out much of the early 20th century the formulas are lost and I’ve not found anyone that has any data about how they were created. Hammered, crinkle, crackle, marbled, “heavy” wrinkle, wood grain paints were use in the automobile industry on radio components and on many other items. The use of them seemed to disappear from the scene sometime in the late 50’s when the metallics and candy colors took over although we still see some wood grain used.
So far, I haven’t found the right combination for smooth hammered paint and I would sure like to hear the results of anyone who has experimented with the hammertone paints.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
