Murphy A104 front metalwork.

[mintras]

Hi

I am wanting to recreate the metalwork for the Murphy a104 I have one good one to copy from this looks like a pressing of some sort, I may want to make more than one.

Anyone guess to how it could be done without paying through the nose.

John

[Leon Crampin]

The A104 front plate is a zinc diecasting, which suffers badly from corrosion if stored damp. The apertures for the loudspeaker and tuning scale leave a relatively thin section of metal, so fabricating one of these might be difficult.

I would suggest either a repair with Araldite/filler or possibly finding another - these sets are not uncommon. My main reason for posting is the paint finish.

I restored one of these sets with peeling paint and had to find a good match for the original finish. Cars are excellent colour charts - you just wander round a car park until you see the right colour.

For the A104, a 1999 Peugeot 306 in metallic "old gold" is perfect - spray cans available from Halfords. I achieved an almost perfect result (one little run) and one can will do the job. For some reason, it worked better without primer - just sand the diecasting down to bare metal.

Leon.

[mintras]

Thanks Leon.