Ariel and Commander metalwork

[mbd]

Bronze looks great! (IMHO)  

[ebb]

THAT is Fantastic.  Next to that varnish, couldn't ask for anything better.
That is what patina on bronze is all about.
To hell with the chintzy glass:p

[Ariel 109]

! ! !   My bloody plate is BRONZE... ! ! ! .
It was the cheap looking silver color on it that threw this fool off.

My theme for bronze on the boat is to let it all go brown or green.
What's that called: funky chic?

Well that's a relief, bronze is easy to enamel.  Let's see how Paul's Commander #5 plate comes out before I begin churning out re-enameled Pearson Builder's plates.  

Funky chic, hmm.  Don't forget shabby chic and cracker barrel.

[Commander 147]

THAT is Fantastic. Next to that varnish, couldn't ask for anything better.
That is what patina on bronze is all about.
To hell with the chintzy glass:p

That is the image I had in my mind for the Commander logo being bronze instead of chrome plated. And that I think looks great.

[Rico]

My Plater touched-up my hull number plate a few years ago:




More details at the begining of the thread here:
http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussion/showthread.php?1552-Commander-155-Mephisto-Cat

These old metal pieces come back very nicely. As I recall, he did a very light plating on it, followed by a light polish. This brightened the metal & cleaned the enamel nicely. It is shiny & bright blue still, as is the rest of the stuff he plated...

Ebb... To add a bit of clarity to the above discussion on 2 & 3 prong triton designs - the Pearson Triton does have a 2-pronged triton design as a class logo, but this is quite different than the proper 'Neptune's' triton used both on the Pearson logo and on the Ariel  / Commander logo design.

I do not have the Commander logo shiny bits on C-155, (very sad!) and the coambings show no evidence that they were ever present on this boat.

[Commander 147]

Rico
 
I thought I remembered your hull plate being new looking (like everything else on the Mephisto Cat) from another post on your gallery pages. Your's is the only one I know of in like new condition. Like every other trade there are good platers and some not so good. You must have found a good one.

[bill@ariel231]

Rico

a question.. did you rechrome your builders plate with the enamel in place?

is there a prefered  order for a recreation of the original builders plate? plate then enamel or enamel then plate??

thanks
bill@ariel231:confused:

[ebb]

The plating process requires  nasty alkali and acid cleaning/prepping chemicals the EPA doesn't approve of,  and get nasty about.
So there are very few plating outfits around.  Especially in California.
Years ago I had some bolts and nuts  chromed.  I think there's like 5 or 6 steps to the process.
Steps requiring copper and nickel layers to be flashed on the steel.

  Took them to a mom and pop called Carrera Plating (Santa Rosa Plating Works)
where the result was truly impressive.  Can't remember the $$$.
How do you plate threaded pieces and  have them able to turn?
(They're still in the phone book, 2011)
Plating bronze is probably a simpler process than chroming steel, BUT

I echo the question: how can you plate the metal with  enamel or even glass enamel on the piece?

Chrome is not the way to go with our builder's plate,  it probably would be nickel.
Which I now believe is the silver metal "flashed" on the bronze A338 plate.
Imco if it was finished it would be thicker looking and have more oomph.
Nickel won't corrode, but will patina depending on what the nickel is alloyed with.

[There is an 'electroless' process (the work is not placed in an electrolyte) that can deposit nickel on any surface, wiki has a description.
Maybe that's how Tony had his plate renovated?  The exposed metal would still have to go through a base and acid cleaning]

[Ariel 109]

Bill, I think the process is plating after enameling.  The enameling oven's heat would damage a thin layer of metal plating.  There are some pretty good do it yourself plating clips on YouTube.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0xFlIQ9MhQ

[Commander 147]

That would be great!

Kyle, I have the logo plate ready to go out but I really want to see the ones that Roger ships me before I send it. Roger does not even have a picture of the ones he sells so I feel a little nervous about sending my old one off until I see the new ones. Hope you don't mind.

[Lucky Dawg]

Anytime in the next 6 months  No prob.  If you don't mind though, I'll delete my address - those google / yahoo data crawlers that frequent this site make me nervous.

[Commander 147]

Please do so. I have it so it no longer needs to be there. You can send me an e-mail through this forum and when I get it I can send you one so you have my e-mail address. That way we don't need to share those here either. I will delete your address from the quote in my post also.

[Ariel 109]

Here's a shot of the builder's plate from Paul's Commander #5 that I'm attempting to re-enamel.  I removed the enamel by heating the plate with a gas torch then cooling it rapidly in a bucket of cold water, that removed most of the old cracked enamel. Bead blasting remove what remained and gave the plate a nice finish.  

I'm going to get a silicone rubber mold made of the plate and have a bronze replica made for my boat, with the number blanked out, so I can punch my hull number #109.  If there's a demand I can get some more produced, let's see.  

Ben  

[Rico]

Rico

a question.. did you rechrome your builders plate with the enamel in place?

is there a prefered  order for a recreation of the original builders plate? plate then enamel or enamel then plate??

thanks
bill@ariel231:confused:

Hi Bill,
(Sorry it took me a while to reply - I somehow missed your question)

I re-chromed the original plate, and YES, the plater did it with the original enamel in place. It was not cracked and it remained in good shape through the plating process which involves some nasty chemicals & processes. I do not know the specific technique he used, He told me very confidently that he'd done similar things before and said he'd take care of it... He did.

The enamel on C-155's plate has not been renewed apart form a nice polishing...

- I magine that if you were producing a new one, you'd plate the new bronze plaque and THEN add the enamel... But I've never done anything like this so I am only speculating.

BEN: Beautiful plate you have there - nice work! (pretty number font too!)

Note: I seem to always refer to plaring as 'Chroming'; as a generic term simply out of habit. - As far as I understand, and to be clear technically, I should say that I believe that all my metals have been in fact Nickel-plated.

[Ariel 109]

Got back the new builder's plate that I had cast from a mold made from Paul's Commander #5 plate.  Still need to clean up with a file, bead-blast and punch in my 109 hull number.  Then off to attempting the enameling on both Paul's plate and mine.  



Here's what half of the rubber mold looks like.