Topic

Has anyone happened to have found a trim paint that matches Smokestone ?

Ive repaired 2 cracks in my instrument binnacle top but they are still fairly noticeable. It would be great to make them disappear entirely by spraying the cover with a matching trim paint. That would be very easy for dark grey with all manner of trim paints available but Ive not been able to find anything that would do the job for smokestone. Any thoughts ?

I think mine is ash grey? but I do know I found a very good match to touch in using Humbrol model paint my theory was its made for plastic so why not, not sure if they do aerosols but have a look you never know. You can get items scanned and colour matched but A] is it the right paint for plastic B] you will probably have to buy 500mm>1L C] it can be expensive..

Do it pink, I will wager my second best hat that no one will notice the cracks.
And that, at the end of the day, is the result you want.
M

Airportable wrote:

Do it pink, I will wager my second best hat that no one will notice the cracks.
And that, at the end of the day, is the result you want.
M

More specifically……DOG COCK PINK!
In order to do this you may have to take Fido with you to the paint shop…….. I’d love to see the look on the face of the counter jumper when you ask them to manipulate and put Fido’s doggiehood into the colour matching machine whist you hold him up!

Have purchase dye from a man on ebay with excellent results.
if you do a search for the following it should appear. (Smokestone (Light Grey) Colourant/Dye and Kit.)

My response was a giggle, Cobber gave us a belly laugh.
Along with technical prowess his humour lightens the tbar & it’s a good recommendation for new members who have some spare time to look back at his previous posts.
Wit & wisdom go hand in hand with Cobb’s.
M

For some reason the paint shop asked me to wait whilst they called the RSPCA. I was later lead away in handcuffs but did manage to negotiate bail in return for lending the magistrate a camshaft locking tool. In any brush with the law it's best to spray on some charm.

Im now waiting to hear back from the guy on Ebay and hoping he will agree to deal with me

We’ll done, as is said, every cloud has a silver lining & following that same logic, every silver lining must have a cloud.
Did you get the appropriate paint reference number & code before you were apprehended?
Possibly RDP (Randy dog pink).
M

And as an added bonus if you did succeed in getting a colour match, ‘ol Fido will always be keen to accompany you on excursions to the paint shop and excited by blokes that wear dust coats and smell of paint!

As usual the cracks in the binnacle had spread out from the points on it's front edge where it fixes to the top of the instrument panel. No wonder they all crack there as it's a pretty hopeless arrangement with expanding inserts that inevitably crack the front edge of the binnacle and then eventually that spreads across the visible top.
To provide stronger anchorage points and also strengthen those parts of he binnacle to stop it cracking again I did away with the expanding inserts and on each side added a short length of slotted metal a couple of inches long (similar to a bit of mechano) fitted behind the front edge which i then riverted on from the front. The front edge of the binnacle has several unused holes so this was very straightforward to do,so it's fixed securely in place either side of the mounting point hole.
The mounting points were then remade by slipping spire/ speed fasteners onto the centre of each metal strip.

I wanted to reinforce the underside beneath the cracks and knowing that P40 fibre grass filler doesnt always bond well to ABS plastic i superglued some strands of fibre to the underside of the binnacle and then bonded the P40 fibre filler to that which sounds a bit Mickey Mouse but worked.

On the visible top I used some bumper filler which is finer than most plastic fillers and ive used to good effect on other car interior repairs in the past. After rubbing this down a few coats of Halfords textured paint disguised the smooth areas so now just waiting for the colour to arrive from the Ebay bloke as recommended by Mnripley here.

At the back I'l follow the same pattern i did on my last TF binnacle; some soft plastic computer feet glued on the top of the dash for it to sit on and some plastic edging around the outline of the binnacle to further limit any clatter.

No animals were harmed in the repair, at least not yet.

You are spot on with those expanding inserts, MGR must have got a job lot of them as no designer would voluntarily use those.
A binnacle is a fair way to cover all the instrumentation junk & if executed well is reasonable enough, but the buttock we have to look at doesn’t come very high in my favourite design list. Mind you I’m not sure what I would have preferred & as far as an injection moulded part, it isn’t complex; more plastic around the mountings front, back & the leading edge.
I adopted the fibreglass/cyanoacrylate trick, using woven banding & replaced the nylon inserts with rivnuts, also snugged in with cyano’.
By experimenting with different viscosity’s & using activator I’ve managed to reenforce all the problem places. The satin black paint I use is so close to the original that a squirt has returned it to a very convincing original looking job.
I like the use of edging around windscreen curve of the fat arse, I’ll add some to see if I like it.
M

There was and probably still is a mob on eBay selling leather covers for the binicle that you glue on, I guess it’s this would be a effective way of hiding cracks and repairs they also make leather covers for the whole dash, door trims consoles etc.