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Paint details for 1950 (ish) ES2

Submitted by john_park on Mon, 11/03/2013
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Singles

After a long long time spent on mechanical issues, I am now getting round to painting the tank. So a few questions:

1. Does anyone have a reference number for the silver paint that would originally have been used? Anything would help, RAL, Pantone, BS, or even a car colour that is an acceptable match.

2. Where would be the best plate to get the Norton transfers for the sides of the tank. I would be looking for something that could be lacquered over.

3. I believe that there was originally a decal in the top centre of the tank, but it has long gone. Anyone know the wording and position?

4. My tank originally had a black line approx. 6mm wide with an adjacent red line of around 1 mm. I have looked at many photographs, and found some great variations. Any idea what was standard, or would that be hoping for too much?

Thanks for your help

John

Submitted by david_cooper on Tue, 12/03/2013

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There are silver paint suggestions somewhere on this site - though seem to remember they are a bit out of date. (Ford 'Silver Fox' used to be mentioned but wasn't that last used on the Cortina?)

For transfers I should have supported the NOC shop... but anyway I used ClassicTransfers. They have a wide selection (a bit wider than VMCC): including tank curly 'Norton' in a surprisingly huge variety of very slightly different scripts according to the year. They also have the very small tank top 'Norton' that goes right in the middle in front of you in the centre of the tank. Almost all arewater slide. They say that they should not be lacquered with synthetic materials or they will curl up and die. But they also say that professional painters can and do succeed by building up very light mist coats to start with. I still don't know how to protect mine from fuel spills. On the other hand they are not very expensive so why not work on the principle 'what man has done, man can do again'?

Tank lining varies a bit according to the whims of the day. I've been looking at as many pictures oold and new of theside siler panel but the actual shape follows trends but was not uniformly the same - they must have done it by hand without a standard mask. Sometimes its back edge is parallel to the knee grips but sometimes it isn't or even goes beneath slightly. Likewise the thin red line was not done with a lining pen (like a Beuglar that gives a perfectly uniform line width). I'm sure the half inch black lines were done with a half inch brushand not between masking tapes exactly 0.5 inches apart. Good luck! It would be nice to have an essay about livery written by an expert on this site.

Bacon's 'Norton Singles' has lots of information re: livery changes year by year. But I imagine a book could be written about location of Norton motorcycle transfers.

Submitted by simon_amos on Sat, 16/03/2013

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Helo Jonh, my name is Vitor, I'm from Portugal and will also start the restoration of my Norton ES2 of 1950.I have the same dilemma of painting and other things.I do not know how was your ES2 but mine was much altered and incomplete.Could you send some photos of your ES2 please?

If yes, my e-mail is vmjbrito@hotmail.com

Vitor

 


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