Bingster

I get their catalogs all the time, and also the emails. I like their Chassis Black and Rust Encapsulator paints. Used them on my front end suspension. In fact I'm putting the Gloss Black on tomorrow so I can put the thing back together. Yeah, I've thought the same thing that they must be hurting a little to offer so many discounts and free shipping.

I hope he's still around. Just sent him a check for parts!! I know his web site about a week ago said that he had had trouble with the site and was rebuilding it or some such thing. So maybe it's down for maintenance. I was surfing his list about a week ago and it was working fine.

I need them also for my '47 Desoto. I was wondering the wisdom of getting NOS rubber for this particular part. Bernbaum seems to be the only one who offers them new. Was it on this site a few weeks (months?) back that somebody told me that the Bernbaum version did not have the metal plate which the rubber was vulcanized onto but merely just a bolt inserted into the rubber? They advised you had to be careful not to tighten too much for fear the bolt would pull out. I just sent my upper bumpers to Steele for re-vulcanization. They don't offer the lowers, however they do have a Packard bumper I believe with the same dimensions. But it connected with a clip instead of a bolt. I was toying with the idea of seeing if a bolt could be drilled and inserted with epoxy or something into the Packard bumper. I guess Bernbaums would be okay, its just the quaily of the rubber I'm concerned about. But for that particular part maybe Bernbaums would work fine.

I have a '47 Desoto Custom and I need the front inner and outer wheel bearings. Does Napa or other auto parts stores sell the right bearings? As in exact match? Also, what about brake hoses? There is a guy on ebay who custom makes hoses. Anybody use him?

Wow! I'm really happy for you, Joe. That looks great! I've been following your saga and I can identify with your learning curves and disappointments along the way. Feels pretty good now, egh? You're gonna have a car you can be very proud of. Wish mine were that far along. Take care.

So what is the proper compounding sequence for stainless steel? Compounds & Wheel types. I've noticed that hard wheels are used for initial cutting and softer for coloring the stainless.

Tim, that web site has a lot of info. It seems to me that they are saying that with stainless steel you need the buffer fast and hot with not too much pressure to bog down the motor. Fast and hot seems to me to mean 3450 rpm as oppossed to 1750. Apparently you only need to use the tip of the buffing wheel. I have been prone to bearing down a little too hard I think. If you have the higher speed, you can still control the amount of heat generated by your feed pressure. A lighter touch equals less heat. Stainless is a hard metal and now I am leaning toward a higher speed machine.

That's a nice buffer. I'm going to Harbor Freight next Saturday. They also have an 8" buffer. Is bigger better as far as the wheel size? HP?

I had been using a motor with a shaft for buffing but the speed was 1750 and I see that buffers run at 3450. So I figured that the speed must have something to do with the rate of polishing. And I have seen the shafts with the pully. Is this really a better way to go?

So what brands are we talking about?

My trusty forum pals! I know I can count on you to give me some good advice on purchasing a bench mounted buffer/polisher for trim and such. I've seen a lot of price ranges. I like the longer shafts on each end for clearance. 3450 rpm. There's Harbor Freight and Sears and various brands that I've never heard of. I don't want to have to spend more than I need to. I really need it for polishing small stainless trim in my furniture making, but will also use it on my 47 Desoto. I'm thinking that a pedastal stand would be a whole lot easier for clearance than mounted on the bench. Let's hear what you like and don't like! Thanks.

My family will keep you and your wife in our prayers. You have my deepest sympathy. Take care and May God Grant you Peace to cope with this!

There was a mentality back in the thirties, for example, that I suspect might have its origin in the fact that so many of the people who designed automobiles, railroad locomotives and passenger equipment, etc. came from the Old World school. There was a pride of craftsmanship that I see lacking today. A case in point are the streamlined railroad passenger trains of the thirties and early forties. All of the major railroads and a lot of the lesser ones were competing for passengers and streamlined trains were the new thing. This is something that can only happen in a capitalistic system like ours. There were so many beautifully appointed passenger car interiors back then due to this competition. I look at the Southern Pacific Daylight trains on the West Coast. They put the new streamlined Daylights into service in 1937. The interior was just dripping with the new Streamline Modern style. The aluminum trim work was plentiful and it was solid aluminum. All the appointments were first class from the sinks in the washrooms to the toilets. I know because for a time I collected these items and restored many pieces from these old cars. Now, after the war the interiors changed. The metal trim was not solid polished aluminum like it had been pre-war. For the 1949 Shasta Daylight, the trim inside was reduced in size and it was now a fluted stainless steel stamping. The detail work on the trim that was so beautiful in the 1937-41 trains was abolished for a more conservative and cost effective approach. I really think WWII radically changed how industrial designers thought after the war. The necessity for fast production and newer materials had a great influence on profucts produced after the war. I believe that planes like the B-17 Flying Fortress were built well and as safe as possible, but I have to also believe that with the extreme demand for them overseas that they were built not to last a lifetime but to get the job done. This planned obsolescence I know was incorporated into railroad cars. A passenger car was built to last thirty years. They figured by that time it would be worn out and superceded by a new design. Autos the same way. Automobiles came out of coachmaking as we all know. The early cars looked like wagons without the horse. Coachmaking was an artform. I think this mentality carried over well into the perfection of the auto. Cars in the twenties still looked kind of crude compared to the thirties, and here again streamlining with the teardrop form contributed an awful lot to auto carbodies. When they went to those teardrop shaped rounded fenders they probably had to make the metal thicker to survive the stamping process. Anyway, I don't really think it had to do with that 8th grade education line.

Eastwood has black "under hood" paint which is a lower sheen black. I don't know what exactly was factory but I do know that dirt does not adhere as well to gloss. Cleaning should therefore be somewhat easier for a car that is going to get driven and not be for show. I'm using gloss black under the hood as well as inside fender wells, generator, etc.

I know this is pretty far off topic but some of you who collect and appreciate old items might be interested in this. I have a Pullman lower sleeping car section for sale from the 1950's. It's the type where during the day it's two facing seats (like a restaurant booth) and they fold down into a bed at night. I have all the seats, backs, ends, frames, etc. I'd bought it for an old Silversides type 1948 GM bus I was going to convert into an RV, and this was to have been my daughter's bed. The project was too much for me and it was abandoned. But it would make a great booth/bed for an old bus or RV. Anyone interested send me a PM. Thanks.

All the best to you and your bride. And that has got to be one of the nicest color combinations I have seen on these old cars. It looks beautiful! Really does. Makes me seriously consider putting something like that on my black Desoto. Take care.

Eastwood sells undercoating in spray cans and bulk along with the gun applicator. Google them for their web site.

It's basically in the same condition as my '47 Desoto when I bought it. It's also black. There is something very unique about the look of an old car prior to restoration - or renovation as the case may be. True, they don't look the same when redone, and I still wonder about a new base/clear coat black paint job vs. the original. Don't you think the new paint makes the car look better than it did when new? I mean that "wet look" of the clear coat never existed back in '47.

I just got seasons 3 & 4 of the TV Superman with George Reeves - the best for my money - and they jumped from what appear to be Nash cars for Lois and the police in the '54-'55 season to pretty Plymouths in the '55-'56 season. A nice two-tone blue and white Plymouth convertable for Lois and black & white Plymouth police cars. Inspector Henderson drove a larger either Chrysler or Desoto, I couldn't tell from the rear. Man, those bathtub Nash's were ugly, to me anyway. Chrysler must have provided cars for the show in '55. Just like United Airlines, whose name was plastered all over one episode. I heard that Frank Sinatra one blew a gasket when somebody showed him the artwork for an album cover with TWA displayed prominently on the airplane. And I also saw in one episode where Clark Kent felt under the front fender of a police car only to find a Hide-A-Key. It was exactly like the one that my folks had. Saw the movie Harvey the other night with Jimmy Stewart and they had a '48Desoto S-11 for a taxicab.

Are you guys joking?

When I first bought my car a couple of years ago, I asked somebody on a Desoto site about parts, and he gave Andy a very positive thumbs up. So I went out and bought wheel cylinders and some other stuff. Now, I am wondering if I should even bother using them. I've heard some good and bad about them. I would re-sleeve now, and I will do that with the rears. But I guess if the new ones look okay inside they'll work. I don't know with Andy if it's a case of loving old cars, wanting to provide parts for them but not having a detail oriented mind to properly spec out the new ones, or seeing a market and not really caring if the products work well or not. I have spoken to him on the phone and he was okay but I definately caught that "New York" attitude or whatever it is. Not a lot of patience there, I would say. Maybe that is the clue to why his parts get a bad rap. I would think that you'd have to have patience to sit down and plan out where and how you make new parts for this market. I hate to judge people but so many have had the same bad experience that there has to be some truth to these things.

What about residue in cracks and stuff affecting paint later on? I've heard some people say to sand it all off. Frankly, I'm not sure which way to go except my car is in somebody's garage and sanding would be a dust problem as oppossed to stripping.

Thanks for that last post. I'll look elsewhere for mine. I cannot understand why he hasn't gotten wise to this criticism and cleaned up his act. He musn't care.

Oh oh, I blew my cover!!

About three years ago before I bought my Desoto, I was surfing the internet for Desoto sites and info when I came across this web site that had photos of Desoto owners with email names that were obscene. And black lines were placed over some of the faces on the site as they posed (with clothes on) next to their cars. I mentioned this to several "officials" of a Desoto club when I saw them at an auction in Iowa, and they kind of just shrugged it off. Has anybody run across this site or know what it is or was? It kind of scared me off Desotos for awhile!!