Saving Old Seagulls

Hi All

Wonder about the finish on the engine block of the Silver Centurys. While the drive shaft tube on my 1975 WS is pitted with rust the engine finish remains like new. Any help on what the finish is?

Don

Silver paint!. Having said that it's not uncommon to find the leg pitted away to a moonscape with lots of paint left on the block. The iron was of a high quality and was good at resisting rust; rather less so in the later years when I'm told price vastly outweighed quality and they'd toss 'any old rubbish' into the furnace. (One of the foundrymen who used to cast the blocks drinks in my local pub).

I use Hammerite smooth on mine - fairly close match and seems to last, but I have no idea what the factory used when the Silver Century was introduced forty years ago. Of course I don't know if you can get Hammerite over there.

Good luck

Rust-Oleum makes Hammerite paint in both spray and brush on types. It’s a very close match to Seagull colors. It’s available at most hardware or home stores in the US/CA. Check out the web site under hammered finish for a look at colors. www.rustoleum.com

Perhaps I should stress that the Silver on a Silver Century block is smooth, not hammered.

The same shade of paint was used in the gearboxes, but carburettors were a little bit different. I have various shades of Amal carb, several Villiers, and even a couple of Villiers carb bodies which are a 'hammered' appearance. John reckons this was stove enamelled rater than painted.

The hammered paint appears on the later versions of Villiers flywheels, which were a bluish silver Hammerite in the late sixties after the introduction of plastic starter rope pulleys and before the advent of the Wipac magneto. The Wipac was a bronze for which I haven't got a good match yet.

While we're on the subject - does anyone out there know a close match for the blue used on 170 gearboxes and transom brackets? Is it the same blue as on the later tanks?