The term “auto restoration” can mean a lot of different things to different people. There’s everything from a weekend warrior light restoration to a full “nut and bolt” restoration that will border on OCD status. There’s no right or wrong way as long as you’re happy with the vehicle in the end. We decided to list our top 5 favorite simple ways to improve the quality of your restoration.
- Black Oxide Coating– The Eastwood Metal Blackening kit allows you to recreate the original black oxide finish found on brackets and hardware on many vehicles. This coating is hard to duplicate with a paint and is more durable than standard 1K aerosol paints. Eastwood’s Metal Blackening System allows you to apply a factory looking finish, with no special equipment and no need to heat cure. This 2 component product protects against rust and temperatures up to 600° F. It not only replicates the look of black oxide, but the feel as well, while being even more durable. We suggest getting your batches of parts all blasted or cleaned and ready at once so you can coat them in batches.
- Splatter Trunk Paint– Many auto manufacturers used a “splatter” paint in the trunk and gave a really cool textured look in the trunk. The coating usually consisted of mainly an ordinary base color with flakes or different colors added in. These flakes created the texture and gave the trunk a nice pop when new. Eastwood Trunk Paint comes in three different colors and replicates the original trunk finishes on many cars from the 1960’s that can be hard to replicate yourself.
- Engine Paint– The engine bay of a restoration is arguably as important as the interior of the car as it is usually the second thing anyone looks at after the exterior of the car. For this reason you need to make sure you’re engine color is correct and lasts! Eastwood Ceramic Engine Paints are designed to closely match original factory engine colors and give you a durable finish you can be proud of for years to come. These paints can be applied with a brush, paint gun, or our new 2K Aerospray technology that allows you to spray a durable 2K paint from an aerosol can.
- Carburetor Paint– Original equipment carburetors are an important part of doing a proper restoration and some enthusiasts go to great length to match the numbers on the carburetors to their car! We took the time to replicate the original colors of carburetors found on cars from the 1930’s-1960’s. Whether you need gold or silver we have you covered with Eastwood Carb Renew.
- Zinc Plating- In addition to a black oxide finish we mentioned above, a lot of hardware and small brackets on older cars were electroplated with a tin-zinc coating. Normally these were coated in a huge vat of the tin zinc formula was an elaborate process. We’ve simplified the process for restoration enthusiasts and put together a small kit you can easily do small batches at a time. We suggest stripping or blasting the parts and then polishing them before coating them to get the best results.
