Vintage wrinkle/textured paint finishes

[Rhodesplyr]

I'm working on the restoration of a 1950s RCA Remote Mic Preamp for a studio engineer, and, at his insistence, I'm having a new back sub-panel fabricated for it using modern XLRs rather than the old-style Cannon 3P connectors.

The old connector panel is painted in a brown wrinkle finish, but on close inspection, it almost looks like it had a pattern embossed on the paint rather than it just being a drying effect.

Are there any modern textured paints that do a good job of approximating this finish? Owner pays very well, but likes the end result to look nice.

[The Dude]

There are some crackle spray paints out there. You'd have to experiment a bit on some scrap to see if it's what your looking for.
Possibly another option: If you put a very light coat of regular spray with a matched color, might the rough original wrinkle texture show through? Just a thought............

[Rhodesplyr]

Possibly another option: If you put a very light coat of regular spray with a matched color, might the rough original wrinkle texture show through? Just a thought............

The input connectors on this unit are mounted on a 9" by 2.5" sub-panel, so I'm having a sheet metal fabricator make an entirely new sub-panel for it. I made an exhaustive survey of modern XLR connectors, and none would fit in the old panel's cutouts. Additionally, the owner is adamant about having an additional XLR output connector on the back panel since the original main balanced output is via binding posts on the front panel (meant to drive a telephone line).

So I'm just trying to get the new panel to match the old finish on the rest of the unit.

[The Dude]

Gotcha,............so I wasn't much help.

I had another thought. I've seen a process used for making fake wood panels for vintage cars where they use a printed vinyl overlay (basically a sticker). It looks very realistic even up close. Maybe you could take a close up picture of the existing finish and have a print shop make you an overlay to cover the new panel. I know the finish you're talking about and I'm not aware of any paint that will emulate that finish. Most of the crackle paints are far too random.
That's all I got.

Edit: I know that Fastsigns can do this sort of thing. I've had them do custom drum covers before with graphics. Here's one of the kits. The drums are covered with vinyl sign material printed with custom graphics. It's hard to tell it's not pained on.

[Chuck H]

A high res picture of what you want to achieve might help. I'm a finisher by trade. I do architectural coatings, but I've had to improvise more than most to duplicate odd finishes and surface profiles. I may know more than average about what can be achieved with over the counter products, but I'll need to be sure of what you want.

[Rhodesplyr]

I'll see if I can get a high enough res photo, but this finish is what you see on a lot of equipment chassis from the 50s and 60s, like tube testers and other test equipment. My 1949 Heathkit Condenser Checker has a similar paint finish.

Funny thing--I was cleaning it while it was on the bench, and it turns out the the chassis paint color is grey, not brown. It had a very even layer of grime on the outside that made it look brown So think test equipment grey textured finish.

I highly recommend a product called Krud Kutter, very well-named.

[52 Bill]

Rustoleum used to have a line wrinkle spray paints that were pretty good. They reacted to heat during drying giving you the ability to change the texture from a fairly coarse pattern to an almost smooth wrinkle. I know that they had a black and a red, but I don't know if there was a grey.

I guess you can try searching their site to see if they still make the stuff. Also try the antique radio sites, they must use a lot of that stuff.

[dmartn149]

I found this on finishing.com.

For those of you looking to wrinkle finish anything metal, I've done quite a bit of wrinkle finish on many types of objects and in a variety of colors. I'm an automotive restorer/painter dealing in vintage/classic/cars/racecars.

Here's an outline, you spray the wrinkle finish first, get good coverage and after it takes a "set" have the top coat color of your choice ready, and spray it on top. Do not wait for the wrinkle finish to "wrinkle dry" to spray the top coat color - if you do, it won't look right.
Ernie Layacan
- San Francisco, California

[Chuck H]

Here's a Ooogle images page for *rustoleum wrinkle textured hammered* Three finishes they sell. Maybe one is right enough. You may need to order on line to get a color you want.

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=is...xture+hammered

[km6xz]

A photo would help. Back in the 50s Hammertone was replacing the older wrinkle finish on front panels and chassis paint. But RCA was using a brown flat paint for studio gear by the mid-50s, and some gear was available in two colors, the light brown and a grey, both flat. The earlier equipment was black wrinkle but was a lot olde, 30s and 40s. I had a few RCA ribbon mics and 2 Ba6 compressors, one light brown and other light grey, both flat paint. The RCA 44DX was brown flat paint.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Try vhtpaint.com . Couple years ago I ordered a spray can from Antique. Shipping cost more than the paint and it can't go by air. Since then I found VHT brand on some local store shelves - auto parts shops and Home Despot. Didn't notice any black wrinkle but lots of other choices. A cooperative shop could order SP201 black wrinkle paint for you I'm sure. BTW it worked great on a couple of Ampeg B-15 transformer covers. I was lucky to have a dry June day with calm air at 80F. Definitely necessary to spray under proper conditions. I used to try to make this stuff work years ago, doesn't go well in cold & damp.

[Mick Bailey]

By far the best I've found for wrinkle finish is PJ1. I use it over primer and after curing it's really hard and tough and a good match in terms of texture for vintage finishes. It can then be oversprayed in a different colour if needed (satin looks best), though do a compatability test first.

The wrinkle depends on temperature - too cold and not enough, too hot and it's too much. On larger areas take care to get the heat evenly distributed otherwise the finish will be inconsistent.

[Chuck H]

A couple of neat tricks to get the look just right... You can get a rattle can of metallic finish and just dust a spray over your color coat. Don't cover the color coat, just dust it. Then spray a coat of clear over the top of that. Tre' vintage.

[J M Fahey]

When I got into this madness over 40 years ago, I had lots of service customers with real wrinkled painted tube amp chassis, think finer grained "elephant skin" or "mud lake drying under the Sun" texture.

A real dust and grime catcher, you would bleed if it scratched your skin hard.

Then it appeared the happy middle, a "wavy but smooth" surface which does the trick of hiding surface blemishes but can be cleaned with a damp cloth and is not abrasive.
I used it a lot on my first speakers, which had sand cast aluminum frames, always irregular because they have either pores/air pockets or small "mountains" here and there, where the mold missed a couple sand grains.

Both were replaced by lazy man's very easy to apply "hammered paint" which is inexpensive and easy to get in any industrial paint supplier, the kind where you have to open the can and add the "hammering additive" as much as needed, but does not hide blemishes very well.

But I found this guy explaining VERY well the "ripple surface" finish which is the best of these, which might be the one you want:

DIY/How-To: Wrinkle texture paint | Build Threads