Patina Preservation or Oily Rag

[vulgalour]

I'm currently working through the mechanical and electrical things on this little barn find (it really was for once, spent 20 years in a barn in Wales) and want to preserve its current appearance as much as possible.  Normally I like to clean things to within an inch of their life if for no other reason than to keep the rust at bay.  This little car could be fully restored and super shiny and may well be some day, but for the near future I want to preserve the current appearance as much as possible.

The paint has some fantastic patches on it where the old blue is showing through the hand-painted green, this is something I want to preserve the most, it's virtually impossible to replicate with new paint.


There are two roof repairs, the only bodywork repair work needed on the car, I'll probably blend these in with fresh flat green paint once they're fixed.  But do I make it an obvious repair to add to its visual history or do I try and make it blend with the rest?


Underneath the car will be made as close to good as new as I can, mechanically I want it absolutely solid.  I just can't bring myself to erase the nearly 40 years of patina on the outside.



An Oily Rag restoration is very appealing for this car.  Making it clean so it can be used but not at the expense of all that history on show of a little car that's led a full life.  Will a literal oily rag (where the term Oily Rag comes from) be enough to keep things in stasis?

[steveo3002]

oil will just make a mess when it gets wet

id hazzard a guess that hasnt seen a oily rag or polish /wax in a loooong time , id leave it be and just wash it down now n then

for the roof try and match it best you can then scuff it up with a scotch pad , nothing wrong with a honest repair

[baggabones]

Weld up the nasty hole, grind back and paint (sympathetically)....then a good coat of ankor wax ( I know the haters hate the stuff but it works and can be removed down the line should you want a respray doing ) looks like a good 'un

[nomad]

Waxoly! ( 3-in-1 is fine around the house but I use the good stuff on the car )

Make sure the chassis, box sections, and behind wings are well coated to stop rustbugs eating out from within / underneath.
Then apply waxoyl thickly over the paintwork using a mop, paintbrush, or clean non-fluffy rag.
Have a brew, then lightly wipe off the excess with a fresh clean non-fluffy rag (which soon becomes oily - hence the term "oily rag"  )

It worked for me on the wings ! Errm

[Dez]

gibbs brand lubricant is what you need.
i work with bare metal and patina'd-in-need-of-protection cars daily, and i use gibbs. ive done some semi-scientific tests, and it outperforms everything else, including ankor wax. it also doesnt leave a horrible sticky/oily residue, you can only just tell when panels are coated with it.

its £15 for a very large aerosol can, but youll treat a whole car with about half of it left over for reapplication as is rubs/washes off, it will need recoating in key areas about once a month. duncan who is the uk importer and distributor uses it on his own patina'd '32 coupe, and is a very nice chap to deal with too.

[vulgalour]

With the Gibbs stuff do I need to mask off glass and rubber or does it wipe off easily enough? While I can put up with the re-applying regularly - no more work than polishing a shiny car really - I don't know that I could tolerate having to mask up every time I did it.

Do I have to remove the minor surface rust before applying a protective layer? The vast majority of the rust and staining you see is a very fine surface powdery rust rather than pitted metal, it should be easy to remove but may detract somewhat from the car's abandoned/careworn appearance.

[retrolegends]

Let me know how you get on with this Vulgalour, doing a similar thing to my Hillman, much to the wife's disgust!

[melle]

I might be too stupid for this, but I'd say the best way to keep patina is to just leave it as it is. Worked on my car for the best part of a decade so far.

[retrolegends]

Feb 27, 2015 17:26:26 GMT melle said:

I might be too stupid for this, but I'd say the best way to keep patina is to just leave it as it is. Worked on my car for the best part of a decade so far.

It is, for me it's about trying to prevent it from getting any worse though and preserving how it looks now. The missus would rather it be a trailer queen but then I wouldn't want to park it anywhere!

[ettorebugatti]

Linseed oil is another option, it needs re-applyibng on a regular basis.
But you can brush it on.

[vulgalour]

There's one tricky thing about preservation and that's the repairs you need to do.  I didn't want to risk leaving the really rusty areas exposed to the elements, the metal on this car is thin from the factory and I don't want it getting holes all over as body panels for the 6 are nigh on impossible to get in the UK.  I had to do something to protect the worst bits of the bodywork.

Areas like this cannot be left as they are, more rot will happen and the car will suffer.


This is going to need welding to stabilise it properly but I haven't got any gas for the welder and don't look likely to have any for a while now.  I cleaned the rust back to bare metal where it was obvious it was going to get worse and then applied some zinc-rich primer which in my experience seems to keep rust away better than ordinary primer. To stay true to the car's appearance I wanted to get a close match to the faded green off the shelf but not go to the trouble of getting it mixed specially to match. I want my repairs to be visible. I chose a satin paint so it wouldn't look too new against the rest of the car and took a chance that this exterior metal paint would be suitable. No spray paint, this has to be brush painted.




It shouldn't look like a new repair and should end up being in keeping with the car.  I'm not slapping it on really thickly but equally I'm not trying to get it perfect.  I want the repair to end up looking like it was done before the car was hidden away, on a budget and just to get another year's motoring out of it.  I did both corners and they don't look too terrible.  The fresh paint has dried a bit darker and it's not as obvious as I'd feared when first applied.

[vulgalour]

If anyone has their own experiences, techniques and even failed experiments for preserving the patina of their car I'd like you to post here, pool a bit of knowledge sort of thing and enjoy looking at some characterful cars.

[rodbuilder]

I use this

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/181447089421?limghlpsr=true&hlpv=2&ops=true&viphx=1&hlpht=true&lpid=108&chn=ps&device=c&adtype=pla&crdt=0&ff3=1&ff11=ICEP3.0.0-L&ff12=67&ff13=80&ff14=108&ff19=0


on this



Goes on clear with a clean rag and dries satin apply twice a year and body is still the same 5 years on.

[vulgalour]

The paint on that looks amazing, I am quite envious.

[rodbuilder]

80 years and lots of sun to get that finish

Most of the chassis rails are new steel painted with satin rattle can no primer, after 2 years they rusted through just right then the sealer to maintain the finish.

[Carter]

Feb 24, 2015 18:51:55 GMT Dez said:

gibbs brand lubricant is what you need.
i work with bare metal and patina'd-in-need-of-protection cars daily, and i use gibbs. ive done some semi-scientific tests, and it outperforms everything else, including ankor wax. it also doesnt leave a horrible sticky/oily residue, you can only just tell when panels are coated with it.

its £15 for a very large aerosol can, but youll treat a whole car with about half of it left over for reapplication as is rubs/washes off, it will need recoating in key areas about once a month. duncan who is the uk importer and distributor uses it on his own patina'd '32 coupe, and is a very nice chap to deal with too.

^^^ Totally this! Amazing stuff.

[Deleted]

Oily rag restoration means just simply doing the minimum work to make the car legal and safe to use it has nothing to do with preserving the paint or bodywork.

[brachunky]

Thread revival! Since this old thread was posted it appears that the "patina" look is still around which in a way, suits me for a couple for years.
The 67 F100 I bought over the weekend will not have a proper spray paint for at least a couple of years so I need to know from those wiser folk, what they have successfully used over the last few years to keep the patina/rust at bay in our climate. I don't want a glossy look but would prefer some sort of protectorant (if there is a word like that).Their seems to be tons of interweb opinions with American products but what do we have here?

[Deleted]

Hey man,i have used these "all purpose spray" oil cans from Aldi on all my original paint mopeds,and the paint came up supershiny,full,really nurtured the paint. Just spray liberal amounts on a rag and soak it in. You cannot do anything wrong. And water-rain does not ever never touches the paint. It just rolls off. Superstuff,dirt cheap. Try it.

[Deleted]

Oily rag IS paint preservation. Period. On a real patina car like yours,your truck,it will keep your California pickup as if it was still in Cali.