Yes, you can reporcelainize a vent in your garage*

[816oldguy]

Need to start looking for a kiln now. Great work.

[Stan_D]

I just got a small sand blaster setup. Maybe we can work out a deal. I strip 'em.....

[Battdad]

Have you tried any new colors recently?

[Doug_Fleuette]

Boy o boy I got a 242b vent that could really use your attention... I work for a school and we have a nice kiln.. wonder if I could bring in some parts to bake.. just need the gun and the rest of the equipment...

[BargainFinder]

Cameron -- Incredible thread here! Thanks so much for starting it. I think in one thread, you likely seriously expanded this hobby for a number of collectors. Give me a few years, and I'm hoping to be among them.

[cdmurphy]

Sorry for the long dry spell in posting -- I've actually done a fair bit, (Maybe 70-80 mixes and test firings.) and found a few dead ends. My initial goals are to get a good color match to the 200a red, and at least the modern (darker, solid green, 220E onwards), and the older 220B,C,D vents that are lighter, with more of a yellowish tone. From what I can tell, the colors were never all that consistent from Coleman, as I've got vents from about 30 different lanterns from the late 30s -> late 70's, and there is quite a bit of variation.

I did find that a mix of 60% 930 "Oriental" Red to 40% 771 "Flame" Red is a very good match for the 200a vents I have access to. I haven't actually tried it on a vent yet, but the small swatches I've done look very good. Also, 25% 767 "Peacock" Blue to 75% 791 "Hunter Green" is spot on for the single seafoam 242 vent I have.

I initially tried mixing the 791 "Hunter Green", with some of the 772 Black, thinking I could just darken the light green to get it where I wanted it. No such luck -- it did darken it, but the green had a definate yellow cast, and was a little too yellow for even the older 220b,c,d yellower green. The only real nice match was around 30-40% black, it made a good match for a few dark green 242 vents I have kicking around. Unfortunately I'm not quite sure of their provenance, as they came as parts. This is a very dark green, almost a whole shade darker then the common dark green of the 220e and onwards.

No problem, I thought I just need to add some blue, to bring the balance back to green. So, another two weeks, and a few more colors from Thompson enamel, and I give it another shot. I tried 8.5% and 15% of the 767 "Peacock" blue, and do a series of increasing percentages of black. 30ish samples later, it's obvious that I can get the overall tone and color balance pretty close, but the colors appear washed out, and aren't very saturated at all. It's like I've mixed some white paint in there as well. (It seems to be a problem from the blue -- the straight green - black mixes seem pretty saturated, just yellowish. The blue probably had white pigment added to lighten and brighten it. -- great for the blue, not so good for Coleman green.) I called Thompson Enamel again, and spoke to their technical adviser, Tom Ellis. He recommended adding their ceramic pigments to the "Hunter Green" base. Apparently, these are the same pigments that they use to color their enamels in the first place. They're very small bottles, but a little goes a long way. I ordered 5-6 different colors, including a green, several blues, and their black and yellow pigments.

After a few more weeks, and another 20-30 samples, I think I've got it. I'll need to look at my notes when I get back to the shop on Monday to give exact percentages, but roughly, a great match to the older yellowish green is something like 50g 791 "Hunter Green", and about 2% OC-191 green pigment, 3% OC-32 Yellow pigment, and about 1.5% OC-50 Black pigment. These ratios have a lot of wiggle room, as a lot has to do with how much you are trying to override or overwhelm the base color. Similar results can be had with much larger amounts of each pigment, but a smaller relative percentage of black and more of the yellow. (The OC-191 is a slightly bluish green, and the pigment seems to be a lot more powerful than the OC-32 Yellow. It takes almost 2:1 yellow to green to get a neutral looking green if you start using a lot of the green pigment.)

The more modern darker, greener green is something like 50g 791 Hunter Green, 3% OC-191 Green, 2% OC-32 Yellow, and about 2% OC-50 Black. I've got a few vents stripped, and plan to have some more pictures of the results up soon.

[Battdad]

Thanks for the update. A lot of good information there. I'm looking around for a kiln. They seem to range any were fron $200 and up for used ones. I don't know much about kilns, is there anything that I need to really look for in a kiln when buying one.

[Doug_Fleuette]

Have you tried gold bond color yet??

[cdmurphy]

Battdad -- I don't know a ton about pottery kilns - but I've made / repaired a few heat treat kilns / ovens. I would imagine it would be smart to test any used kilns if possible. The coils or elements on electric models take a beating after a while, due to either shock, or just oxidation. I don't know how long they last, but it's probably only hundreds of firings, not thousands. I had to replace the elements in my little burnout oven / kiln, but I don't know it's previous history. The other thing to keep in mind is that older kilns had very rudimentary controls. Typically they used a rotary dial to adjust the power level (bi-metalic strip that basically varied the duty cycle), and usually something called a "kiln sitter". the kiln sitter was basically a kill switch that would turn the kiln off after a small disposable ceramic strip inside the kiln got hot enough to melt and bend out of the way, letting the kiln sitter break the connection. You would use a strip that corresponded to the type of pottery or glaze you were firing. I've replaced all that on my kiln with an off-the-shelf PID controller and solid state relay I picked up off Amazon for about $35. Installation isn't for the faint of heart, but it's not rocket surgery either. Now I can set any temp I want, and it keeps it within 2-3 degrees all day long.

Doug -- I haven't tried any yellows or golds yet. I would also be hesitant to give out any info on gold bond color matches anyway, as there are already too many fakes out there. I don't personally care all that much for the gold bond color scheme, most of my efforts are towards duplicating more common Coleman colors, or other color combinations I wish Coleman had offered.

[cdmurphy]

Update -- I still don't have any good pictures to show off, but after quite a few failures and some more tests, I've figured out a few more important tips.

The first few vents I tried worked great, along with most of the flat test strips I've used for color matches. I tried a few more vents last week and over the weekend, and had nothing but trouble. Either the base coat, or the color coat would crack and bunch up, leaving various blobs or cracked / crazed patterns. It wasn't even, or over the whole surface, but generally in the thicker areas. I tried different water content, as well as lighter or heavier applications with the spray gun. What I found was that wetter, and or thinner applications seemed to help, but i still had problems that didn't go away until the coating was too thin to avoid burned through areas on firing. I finally stumbled on the answer, after I had one successful base coat on a vent that I had allowed to air dry because I was busy firing / ruining two others first. To speed things along, I had been using a heat gun to dry the vents after spraying the enamel powder. Heat gun = 2-3 min, air drying = 1 hour ... I'm impatient :-) It turns out (after some research), that drying rates effect how hard the enamel / water slurry sets up. What I was doing was making a very hard / brittle shell that would crack and pull away from the metal on firing, rather than the nice fluffy, weak structure that results from slower drying. I had thought I might have been firing them too hot as well, but that didn't turn out to be an issue. This afternoon I sprayed 6 test panels all at once, and pulled three of them to rapidly dry with the heat gun, while letting the others dry slowly. I fired one each of the slow and rapid dried panels at the same time at 1450, 1500, and 1550 degrees. In each case, the slowly dried panel looked great, while the rapidly dried panel had varying levels of cracking and bunched / curled up blobs.

The takeaway: Keep the water content between 35-40%, spray wet, medium coats, and don't rush the drying. (Once the vents are dry to the touch, you can bake them around 200-300 degrees for 15-30 min to drive off any remaining moisture, just don't rush the initial drying from wet.)

I plan to have some more pictures, as well as verified color recipes for a few Coleman greens in the next few days

[Digout]

What a brilliant thread. Thanks cdmurphy for the work you have put into this. I started to investigate enamelling, and had not proceeded very far, then I found this thread. 3

Again Brilliant work.

Thank You for sharing the info.

[Doug_Fleuette]

Would you get the same results if you dried overnight??

[HillCountry]

Cameron, I really appreciate all the work you are doing on this. I have worked in a college ceramics lab and in a small pottery studio and have hand dipped a lot of glazes, but never sprayed any. I can sure see why the thinner glaze works best and have read an article in a ceramics industry publication about why thinner coatings are more resistant to cracking. We used to use water-soluble wax resist in spots that we didn't want the glaze to flow, like the center hole on top a vent maybe. I hope to stumble on a small kiln someday to try this myself. Thanks!

[Battdad]

Just wondering if you have tried anymore colors lately. This is one of the best threads on here.

[Bill]

Paul:

The shiny Coleman founts are nickel plated, not chrome. Yes, you can have them plated, but it's not cheap. I had a Prentiss-Wabers fount nickel-plated, and it cost me $90, and it doesn't look all that great. Your base metal has to be really smooth and blemish-free for nickel plating to look nice. (My P-W fount did not have a really smooth finish to begin with, so I can't blame the plating company for a less than mirror finish on the end product.)

[Chucker]

Welcome Paul.

If I want new nickel I buy a new fount. Typically if a fount has less than 50-70% paint I will remove the old paint and decal and apply new. I often use high temp engine enamel. If I use normal rattle can paint I'll top it with clear engine enamel, usually Dupli-color then bake.

The only time I use primer is if I have a brass fount where I'll use self-etching primer then 2 topcoats. Coleman didn't use primer as it would have filled in most any embossing after they were done with the topcoat. I bake all paint (except VHT Flame Proof) for 45 minutes at 225 deg. F.

Just the way I do it.

[Lanterndude]

Sub'd

[Dmacp]

tell us about the ground coat please?

[Murff]

This is an old thread.

Two of the posters, including the original, haven't posted in over a year. Although, one visited about 9 hours ago.

Murff

[cdmurphy]

Dmacp,

I really haven't had much to do with lanterns for the last few years. (I guess I kind of burned out. -- Now I'm into vintage bicycles.)

What did you want to know about the ground coat?

[outlawmws]

Glad this thread came back to life It was before my time!

Interested in trying this I have not a kiln, per se, but a lab oven good for about 2000 degrees! this would be a good winter project.

The link to the Enamel is dead, can I ask for a new one? as I'm not having much luck navigating Thompson's web site...

[Dmacp]

What did you want to know about the ground coat?

I was just wondering if you used one. That was my understanding of the big difference between porcelain enamel on steel instead of on pottery.

Sorry to post on an old thread-I guess someone bumped it up. Good luck with the bicycles. Good of you to drop by.

[Murff]

Not sure if this is much help in the video:

http://www.porcelainenamel.com/

Murff

[Litemup1]

What kind of paint is this for the Vent Cap? Ceramic powder coat? This is something I'm wanting to experiment with.

[outlawmws]

It's neither paint nor Powder Coat (which is just a hot application paint)

It is porcelain, and its fired on (think pottery glaze...)

[Litemup1]

You have any info on that? I was going to try powder coating as well but want to use the best practice for long term

[outlawmws]

That is what this thread is about? Start at post 1 and read.

[Gasman64]

[QUOTE username=Litemup1 userid=7110297 postid=1311246151]You have any info on that? I was going to try powder coating as well but want to use the best practice for long term Silvani, powder coating will not hold up on a vent. A porcelain coated vent is the best, and this company does it, although the turnaround is at least several months:
http://www.ipe-porcelain.com/

[Litemup1]

Ok thanks everyone. Heading in the right direction

[brokenmantle]

something to look forward too but i think i will have to move to a more rural area to do it so i have a big dedicated area for it. planning on a more rural area for a while just need to decide where and get the nerve to do it.