The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk chrome or stainless

hi, i am thinking of renewing my hood emblem on my 1950 3100, i am not sure to go the chrome or stainless route. most of the replacement chrome i have renewed has started to rust slightly and it has only been on the truck for a year or so.
has anyone matched the stainless against the chrome?
i am edging towards the stainless but am open to any suggestions.

If you live in an area of high humidity, which it appears you
do, and you don't want to be waxing often the SS would be the
logical route, if you have a choice. The problem is, you don't
always have a choice and the SS will not be as brilliant as the
chrome but is low maintenance.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

As you're finding out the repro chrome items are less than satisfactory,my own rear tail-lights and brackets have rusted badly in a short time too.

Our councils love of road salt in the UK doesn't help either,even if you don't use your truck in colder weather i'm pretty sure there must be residual salts etc on the roadsides even after a while.

My stainless (original) hood emblem is on the other hand perfect.(At least as perfect as its 64 years will allow!)

So from that I would deduct,stainless is the way to go IMO.

thanks for the replies, i think i might go for the stainless. my original is not too bad but it has a small split which would cause an injury if you rubbed your hand across it and the painted parts have been replaced with unsightly stickers at some point which are all peeling.
i might try and fix the split and paint the blue and red before i make a decision but i think i would probably get a new stainless one that has been manufactured in the USA.

I purchased a new repop chrome hood emblem only to be disappointed in the fit to the hood. The curve of the emblem is not the same as the hood. It sits proud of the hood at least 1/8" at both ends. Maybe the stainless will fit better. If you go stainless, please report back on fit.

Hood emblem

If it does set funny, you can bend the stainless to fit where the chrome will crack. Color will be different, even polished out you can tell if you have them side by side. I would go stainless because it can be polished over the years and still look good.

Joe

stainless it is then. when it turnes up from the USA i will report back davidf and let you know how good the fit is.

cheers all.

Don't forget to order the mounting gasket.

There was no mounting gasket originally John, that is a vendors invention.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Anyone can have the mounting gasket I purchased. Currently it sits in the never to be used parts bin. The gasket is way too large and even if you trim it to a proper size will look silly sandwiched between the emblem and hood. Also, I would think it to be a debris and ultimate moisture trap. No thanks.

Denny is, of course, correct (no "gasket" was used by GM); and, I reached David's conclusion for not using that emblem mount "gasket" (protector) with a 54/55 Chevrolet truck hood front emblem.

However, I can understand someone else choosing/wanting to use one to protect the paint.

Cheap chrome jobs(off shore) that rust right away are not 'triple plated', Cu first, then polished after all blemishes are removed, then Ni, then Chrome. Ever seen a Model A Ford hood, they were only finished with Ni.

You mean a model A radiator Ed? Yep, no chrome plating over the
nickel, gotta keep the polishing rag going to keep them shining.
dg

I stand corrected Denny,never having seen a totally original truck I just assumed mine had turned to Bakelite and fell apart long before I ever set eyes on my truck.
To be honest I don't have one either.....

I think the hood emblem is like the rear fenders. A lot of
people gasket the rear fenders also but they never did have
anti-squeak in them either, cept for the burbs. The trucks only
had a thin coat of primer under a relatively thin coat of paint
so assembling them paint on paint wasn't really a problem.

Today when we attempt to 'restore' them to their original look,
we WAY over do it with multiple layers of primer, sealers,
fillers and heavy coats of paint. And in many cases several
heavy coats of clear so we can color sand this thick soft layer
of finish to give it that glass smooth look. I've heard guys
boasting that they had applied a dozen or more coats of buildup
to get that show quality finish.
So of course paint on paint or metal on paint is going to chip
the soft paint layers. Nothing stands out more than a Stovebolt
all decked out in a nice mariner blue dress with white primer
showing thru her chipped paint.
DG

Denny, as usual you most likely have it exactly right. However, I am in the camp of using "welting" between fender and other sheet metal for two reasons: Protect the paint and fill the "gaposis" caused by poor factory flanges and perfectly flat box side sheet metal. Besides, most people don't know the welting doesn't belong on the truck.

I was under the impression the truck beds were painted with the rear fenders on?
...in this pic...
You can see original red paint runs on the bed sides.

My truck was originally red.

And you are correct from what I've seen Gus. I do believe the
beds were assembled with the fenders and the whole thing shot.
I've also got similar pictures of my '50 somewhere on a dead
computer hard drive, that looks just like that. You can see
the break where the original paint and black e-coat meet with
the fender off.

They used fender welting as anti-squeak in the front fender
because with every thing hung off the back of the clip it
would move around some, where there would be very little if
any movement of the rear fenders.

DG

My 54 appears to have been painted without fenders from factory. MT posted pictures of 54 bedsides that appeared the same. Paint between fenders and bedsides extending under the rear fenders...Maybe a change in the process over the years?

Quite possible Greg, as we've observed over the years there were
many variations in the assembly lines from one year to the
next and the different locations had their lines laid out
differently and I'm sure management had different ideas for the
production flow at there location and even the line supervisors
right down to the guy that actually pulled the trigger would
have had their own best way of getting the job done.
So it would probably be more accurate to say, trucks coming out
of some locations had the bed & fenders bolted together before
they got to the paint line.
But getting back to the subject, the hood emblems were never, at
any of the plants, applied with a gasket behind them.
Denny G

So weighing the evidence, I asked what the reason for a change in the process might have been. The answer may have been as simple as the angle of the top of the bedsides...Maybe it was too hard to paint under the flat bed rails with the fenders on.