Vintage Dancing Hula Girl Lamp questions - Collecting Tiki

GK Grand Kahu Grand Member (2 years) Dallas, TX Joined: Jul 31, 2006 Posts: 189	GK Grand Kahu Posted posted on Sun, Sep 29, 2013 8:19 PM Yes, these are usually made of "pot metal" which is a cheap zinc alloy and as noted, brittle and easy to break. if you are getting down to that as pictured, there is little you can do to salvage the original finish, but to try to replicate it. I think its a matter of how confident you are with paints. The painted ones were not exactly done in a particularly sophisticated way, but if you can replicate the look, I would go for it since yours was originally that way. There are some pictures online of the vintage paint schemes if you look around. I would only go to bronze or dark copper paint as a last resort. It will be ok, but it will lack some of the metallic sheen and depth of the copper-plated pot metal versions. GK [ Edited by: Grand Kahu 2013-09-29 20:20 ]

Yes, these are usually made of "pot metal" which is a cheap zinc alloy and as noted, brittle and easy to break. if you are getting down to that as pictured, there is little you can do to salvage the original finish, but to try to replicate it. I think its a matter of how confident you are with paints. The painted ones were not exactly done in a particularly sophisticated way, but if you can replicate the look, I would go for it since yours was originally that way. There are some pictures online of the vintage paint schemes if you look around.

I would only go to bronze or dark copper paint as a last resort. It will be ok, but it will lack some of the metallic sheen and depth of the copper-plated pot metal versions.

[ Edited by: Grand Kahu 2013-09-29 20:20 ]

Post #694962 by Grand Kahu on Sun, Sep 29, 2013 8:19 PM