WARNING! Please make sure you are comfortable for this one. HAHA!

Weird 1950's era Fuel Can Restoration.

As you can see by the title this weeks privileged item to be restored is a 1950's...ish fuel can. The can was made by a British company called Eversure Accessories Ltd and they were produced throughout the 50's and 60's as far as im led to believe.

As usual fo my restorations the first job on the list was to get the item torn apart and cleaned up ready for a proper inspection.

Once cleaned up and dried off it was very apparent that there were multiple layers of paint hiding the true surface, so once again it was time to break out the paint stripper and get all of the old paint off to see what kind of metal i have to deal with.

Once stripped i realised that the condition was way worse than i had figured, there was lots of corrosion on every surface. So to remedy that it was given a quick sanding with 80 grit to remove any last traces of paint and knock of any heavy rust before immersing the can in a bath of DEOX C rust remover. As you can see from the results it worked a treat as per usual.

Although another nasty surprise lay in store for me and that was the depth of the pitting in the body of the can which i knew was going to have a knock on effect later on in the restoration! but onward and upwards as they say. So into the booth we went to give the can a coat of etch primer to provide a key for the 3 layers of primer filler to stick to.

Once cured and brought back to the bench my fears were realised i could either save the embossed lettering or fix the rust pitting but i couldn't have both and have the can looking professionally restored. So i chose to lose the embossing and address that at a later stage as i feel leaving any rust pitting is very sloppy and would ruin the finish i was aiming for.

After a good hour of coarse sanding this first stage of primer it as time to clean the surface down and get it back into the booth for a final coat of finishing mix primer. This mix is a lot finer and lays down a lot smoother so as to be able to wet flat it a lot easier to get a glass like surface for the top coats.

Once the finishing primer had cured as said before the surface was again sanded this time with water and wet n dry paper to prepare the surface for the up coming coats of metallic.

I set up a small table de-greased and tack ragged the can and mixed up some GM STAR SILVER for the first layer of colours. While this was curing i jumped onto my pc to re-create the logo and writing which i would cut out on the plotter from some scrap vinyl and use as a template to reinstate the embossed lettering which i chose to hide under the filler.

Once the stencil had been measured out and applied in precisely the right place the parts were re-hung cleaned down and tack ragged again and hut with 5 coats of LUCIFER RED which i had custom mixed for this project. After drying it was time to see how my stencilling turned out. Ill let you guys be the judge of that! ;)

After cleaning down and tack ragging AGAIN! the final coat was applied. 3 coats of clear 1 dry coat for good adhesion and 2 following heavy coats at precisely timed intervals so as to avoid any runs with paint going on as heavy as this. I was incredibly pleased how the paint job turned out minimal dirt inclusion and minimal orange peel. However once the paint has fully cured and sunk to a stable level i will go back with some wet flatting and buff to a perfect glass finish. :)

Anyway onto the next stages and those were to Zinc plate the cap/retainer and before anyone comments yes the patina was left on purpose so as not to lose the original writing on the cap i only zinc plated it to make it shiny again and stop it from rusting in the future ;). Yes my Zinc plating kit is very home brew / DIY but it works for me and is full if zinc ion goodness YUMMY! :)

Onto the last big job and that was replacing the worn out and burst brass mesh in the filler neck with nice new shiny stainless mesh and to polish up the brass cage that holds it.

Then it was simply a case of pop riveting the handle / spout back on and taking the final shots.

I know this video is a bit on the lengthy side but i tried to cut it down as much as possible without losing any important stages or processes.

If you like what you see and have any ideas for the channel or would even like to donate something to restore to the channel please get in touch. :)

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