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MG MGA - White TEXT printing on Heater control unit

Has anyone discovered a neat method of reproducing the WHITE TEXT used on the Bakelite Heater control?

I have a control in good physical condition but missing most of the white printing.

I think I could repliccate the text in BLACK , but it needs something more substantial than say, white Letraset.

Ideally it should be screen printed but that is beyond me due to the compound curves of the unit.

Am resisting buying one of the new repro units- as nice as they look, mine has all its internals etc

I have added a "stolen" pic of the repro copy currently available to show the type of text etc

The overall
finish" looks very new , not at all like old Bakelite , hence my wish to keep the old one.

One option might be to transfer print and varnish over, but that seems to be a cheat?

M THOMPSON

I cleaned up my bakelite panel knobs with very fine steel wool, filled in the letters with white paint, and then sprayed with satin acrylic. They still look good after several years, without the too shiny look of the repro plastic knobs.

I never got around to re-lettering the heater panel, but I bought some white "dry transfer" lettering from a local model train store that looks like it should work. I plan to rub the letters on and then finish with satin acrylic spray like I did on the bakelite knobs. Only problem is I didn't have a temp control knob so had to buy a repro. It really looks out of place beside the original bakelite knobs.
Jeff Schultz

You could try taking the heater control panel to an engraver and ask him to engrave the lettering exactly as they are. A light engraveing job, not too deep, should be ok. Then use white paint to fill in all the letters. Should have a good result.
F Camilleri

Have you noticed that the "directions" near the heater control knobs, does not actually match the knob's function - eg, "Push and Turn" on the air knob.
So do you want to reletter this as per original, or as it actually works?
Peter.
P. Tilbury

The original and newer repro's just said "push". The incorrect "push and turn" repro parts were around for a long time though!
Neil McGurk

"push and turn" was actually correct for some assemblies. I suspect the fresh air system with no heater core of water valve was like that, having the blower switch incorporated into the air control knob. Some very early production cars with a heater may also have been like that. Very rare though.
Barney Gaylord

I used a sharp toothpick and white water based Bullseye primer (just what I had on hand) to fill in the letter. If you miss, wipe it off and try again. Eventually, you'll get to where you can fill in the letter and not smudge the surrounding bakelite.

Then, once it's really dry, you can buff the bakelite to get any white residue off and you're good to go.

Any white paint or primer would work, I think.

JIM in NH
AJ Mail

I used a sharp toothpick and white water based bullseye primer to fill in the letter. If you miss, wipe it off and try again. Eventually, you'll get to where you can fill in the letter and not smudge the surrounding bakelite.

Then, once it's really dry, you can buff the bakelite to get any white residue off and you're good to go.

JIM in NH
AJ Mail



http://www.mgcars.org.uk/mgccz/technic/Heater%20Lettering.pdf

Hope this helps

Gobby
Gobby


Appears the link is not working if you click on it but if you cut and paste it into your address bar it does work

Gobby
Gobby

Begging your pardon, I was thinking of the knobs, not the actual heater panel itself.

The replacement part from Moss is not too expensive at only $12.95 US - you could just save the original and put in a new repro version with the lettering intact. Might be as inexpensive or more inexpensive than having yours repaired if you have to send it out somewhere.

JIM in NH
AJ Mail

This thread was discussed between 02/06/2010 and 04/06/2010

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