OK, I'll tell you how I did it.
I started out repairing the cracks then sanding the entire bow. It was really easy going on the limbs because the light colored glass really made it easy to see where the old finish was. I have a bit more trouble with the darker glass colors.
My thought was that I wanted to be able to undo any mistakes that I made in the color so I went ahead and gave the entire bow probably six or eight coats of finish. This filled in the sandpaper marks and low spots in the glass so that I would then be able to sand off any mistakes easily. It is hell getting paint out of dimples and scratches. I then carefully masked off the riser and put a piece of tape over each tip over lay. I will get to the paint that I used in a bit. I mixed the paint quite thick and used about 45 psi pressure on my little cup gun. Prior to spraying the limbs, I adjusted the cup gun so that very little paint was coming through. It took several passes of the gun to get solid coverage of the color. The air to paint ratio was so high that the paint was almost dry when it was applied. I had no worry at all about the paint running or sagging. It almost had the texture of the little striker strip on a box of kitchen matches..After spraying the limbs I let the paint cure for a couple of days. I then took a sanding block with 400 grit paper and "cut" the lines where the glass and wood met then sanding the paint off of the wooden sides of the limbs.
I had to find a tiny paint brush and feather the color into the very fine lines on the riser overlay. I probably could have spent more time on the limb tips as the paint line is still visible where I feathered it in. Still doesn't look bad except in a close up photograph. I finished up the bow as normal, applied new dry transfer decals, sprayed a few more coats of finish, then wet sanded and buffed it out.
Now for the paint. I just could not see trying to match the color at an automotive paint store. Who knows how many mixes that it would have taken to get the color right and I didn't want to blow a hundred dollars on paint. So, I got to thinking that probably the most flexible paint made is latex. Why not give it a try? I went to Lowes and started collecting paint chips. Out of the dozens of light greens available none came even close. So after a few days I decided to buy a few of the sample colors in the half pint jars. I bought three and started playing with mixes. What I ended up with is about two parts Valspar Limeade and one part Lafonda Wild West Green. I say about that mix because that is where I started and it dried a little too light. Adding a little more Wild West Green brought it as close as it was going to be. Notice the color on the riser overlay where the limb glass wraps around the black. That is the original color on the narrow line. I wasn't going to attempt putting color on that little line and it is very hard to tell where the paint ends and the glass color begins.
I hope that this helps anyone trying to clean up a '61 or any of the light colored glass bows. It took quite a bit of time compared to most bows that I have done but it came out looking better than most of the bows where I didn't do anything with the glass color.
Topic: 1961 Kodiak Special Restore (Read 1606 times)
