Refinishing Dash Knbs

[grey beard]

Whilst reading in the archives of this forum, I remembered reading a thread that discussed various ways of refinishing the inserts on Pilothouse dash knobs. That was from several years ago. Do any of you have suggestions that have worked for you? My own knobs have brass ceners - all except one which is pot metal. Were they all the same, I'd be tempted to leave the brass showing and just polish it and paint the lettering black.

Originally all the knobs were black. Mine were all gunked up with repaint efforts to the point where the lettering was not visible. Do any of you have a method of refinishing the black centers that will still allow the writing to be visible?

Thanks for your ideas.

[MBF]

I did mine and left the brass showing (I think the brass center was originally painted black? before I stripped them on a soft wire wheel) and painted the letters. I was going to clean them up and repaint the black center, but I liked the look of the brass so I lef them that way. They were done quite a while ago. Mike

[Allen I.]

I did this as an afternoon project with my 6 year old son because he wanted to "fix up the old truck".

I cleaned mine thoroughly, packed the letters with Play-doh, and hit them with a couple thin layers of spray paint. Before it dried, a toothpick and a steady hand cleaned out the letterring. After the paint completely dried, I went over the letters with some Testors model paint on a brush. The paint settles into the etched letters and the excess wiped away fairly cleanly. It took a couple tries for each one but turned out pretty decent.

On the downside: I don't think they will wear well over time and will likely not take too much abuse.

On the up side: It only takes a few minutes per step and my son and I had fun doing it together.