EX-WD magdyno finish

Previously Skip Brolund wrote:

On the EX-WD bikes, were the dynamo & magneto painted, or was the dynamo left plated & the mag left unfinished aluminum as the civilian bikes?

Thank you,

Skip

Hi Skip, on mine the mag is aluminium plain finish and the dynamo is mat black.

But Richard is the man with the knowledge on WD Norton's.

Skip... The wdnorton.nl web site has an article in paint partly written by Richard Payne. It seems to have the info you are looking for. "Painted in parts so ancillaries stayed as supplied. But then they might heve been repainted...David

Sorry Chaps, I didn't see this one the first time around.

I've seen nothing in the WD literature to suggest anything other than standard finishes. They were certainly not painted.

'Radco' in "The Vintage Motorcyclist's Workshop" states that dynamo steel bodies were plated with a thin cadmium or zinc finish. I have to say that some earlier dynamos look to have been nickled. Later war were certainly cadmium-plated.

The aluminium MO1 castings were left in natural finish as were the 'Mazac' end plates and these appear as bright silver in photographs of new machines but being a zinc-based alloy, they quickly turned grey.

The overall painting of reconditioned engine units and ancillaries seems to have been very much a 1950s habit. Probably due to tens of thousands of National Servicemen having to be kept busy. A variation on the "If it moves, salute it. If it doesn't, paint it white" theme.