The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Painting hubcaps

Anyone have experience in repainting chevy hubcaps using the thistle grey with black letters? I want to restore my caps which are chipped, faded and a little rusted. Does anyone know if there's a stencil available that would mask off everything except for the letters.

To me you would either paint the letters black first. Mask them off and then paint the background grey.

or

Paint the background first, somehow mask off the entire background and then shoot the letters with black.

How about you paint the background. Then you get a couple of good quality artist brushes and go at it by hand. I bet it wouldn't be too hard. Have you seen those guys doing pinstriping? Just have a rag handy for the odd mistake.

If the letters are easy you can probably mask quicker.

Or you can paint the grey, then use the black "Chevrolet" mylar decals available for this purpose. I went this route on the letters across the radio grille, and they look great. If I tried to paint those letters, there is no way I could get the edges straight.

Tony,
I tried that a couple years ago and the edges of the letter looks like I was painting during that recent earthquake. Maybe my better half has a steadier hand.

Brian,
Good idea but will the letters stay afixed even being exposed to the weather and being rotated fast?

Craig
Rotated fast? I think you must be dreaming about these old trucks being able to go fast:).
But I have no idea if they will stay on well, I bought repop hubcaps and they came with painted emblems. But it is one way to get nice straight edges. And not terribly expensive to find out.
I was thinking, if you still want painted emblems, you could paint the whole center section of the hubcaps black, apply the decal over the black paint, then spray the entire thing gray. Then remove the gray-painted decal carefully, and the lettering should be black with nice straight edges. I have never tried this, would it work you think?

or....Depending on how the decal set is produced, do the opposite. Paint the gray 1st, apply the decal frame set around the letters, shoot the black. I know, just a dreamer.

Isn't there a way to paint the hubcap the color of the letters, then repaint with the color of the rest of the hubcap then compound or somehow remove the second coat from the letters, leaving the original color on the letters? Seems like I heard of this somewhere around here before.
I bet MartinSR will know!

Over here we have shops that computer cut decals for signage. Perhaps you could get them to cut 4 with the leters cut from the backing that you could apply and use as stencils.

Get the decal kit from any of the vendors that sell repop parts.
Dont use the letters themselves but peel the letter surround off & use it as a stencil & shoot away.