Anyone here tried to make their badges look good again? If so, how'd you go about doing it?

I picked up some Nevr-Dull today and pulled the badges off. I started on the rear one and it turned out alright, but the gold plating is wearing off, so they have a silverish look in places.
The other 2 badges are in bad shape, but I'm gonna try my luck with them to see how they turn out.

I've thought about it a few time myself.  Mine are pretty bad.  Here are some of my ideas.

Gold flake paint.  Prepping the edges and then very carefully painting them.

Some really thin self adhesive gold foil.  I don't even know if something like this exists.  

Either one of these ideas would require hours of work and a lot of patience.  I'm sure there is a way to restore them to their original beauty but I don't have a clue as to how to do it.  Does anyone know if a Jeweler could do something like that?  I don't even want to think about how much that would cost!

Mike

I've thought about chipping the red paint out of the badges, and having them redipped in gold.
Don't ask how I'd get the red paint to look as it did before, cause I have no idea, lol.

The goild foil can be bought at any hobby store. It's mainly used on car models.

Maybe give it some rubbing compount and wax?  Treat it like regular paint?  I dunno, maybe it would work.

I think these badges are made of brass, with a gold plating. Can anyone else confirm this?

I've sanded with 200, 400, 600, 1000, and then 1500 grit wet/dry sand paper on the back of one of the badges. The dark gold color goes away, but a lighter, shinier lighter gold comes through. Kinda looks good.

You could always get someone to print you some TGP badge mockups(or custom badging) made of vinyl until you could find someone to refurbish the badges. :wink:

Nah, I'm actually starting to like the look of the car with them off.

I had it verified today that they are not brass. The jeweler seemed to think they were just made up of a bunch of put together metals.  :?

Either way, I was able to sand the gold plating off to reveal a lighter color of gold. So I may just go that route, and then clearcoat them really well. That is IF I decide to put them back on.  8)

Around here, theres a problem with emblem theft, Does anyone make a vinyl decals of the TGP badges?

-Jeff

Quote from: gp90seAround here, theres a problem with emblem theft, Does anyone make a vinyl decals of the TGP badges?

-Jeff

I've sent e-mail's to Reflective Concepts twice now with no reply.  They are the company that makes them for the GTP's and I thought they might be able to do up some custom ones for the TGP's.  I even told them there would most likely be other people interested but still nothing.  I'm going to try one more time but if they don't respond I'm going to forget about them and try another route.  I have a friend who makes vinyl decals and I'm going to see if he can do it.

i'll look into some contacts I have as well....

I'll also see what I can do about vinyl badges as I'm getting some made for another car. 8)

Any word on the stickers?

i just checked with my source and he said it wouldn't be too much probably.. just need to make up a good pic of it and he can get an exact quote.  i'll post back when i get something more

I'm going to email someone about this tomorrow, I'm going to try to take a nice picture of one of my badges to send w/ the email.  Anyways, I guess we would need two different vinyl badges(one for black, one for red) to satisfy everyone..I guess if you want custom colors or an actual custom badge(and not just a stock mockup like I'm wanting), then that could be arranged as well.  I'll update this in a few days when I receive a reply back.