68 Hood Hinges

[Kurt B.]

Should the hood hinges on a 68 be natural or should they and the attaching bolts be covered in "black out" paint?
If "black out" is that the equivalent of semi flat black?
Thank you,
Kurt

[Chuck S.]

Re: 68 Hood Hinges

Kurt, the hood was mounted on the car during the paint operation, and no attempt was made to mask the hinges until the final black-out operation. If you strip the paint off the hinge all the way down to the zinc plating, you will probably go through black-out, body color, gray sealer (on a white car at least), and red primer.

During the black-out operation, a mask was used to shield the outer lip of the hood to maintain body color there, and the area adjacent to the hinge was also masked to varying degrees. The intent was to black out the hinge completely, but if the mask, a pre-fabricated flat sheet of some kind of material, was not perfectly placed, you got varying degrees of less than full black coverage on the hinge side.

Some body color may be visible on the side of the hinge near the fender. This body color has been referred to as "overspray", but actually the black-out occurred AFTER the body color...it is not overspray, but incomplete coverage by the black.

No masking tape was used for this black-out operation, so there should be no sharp lines of demarcation anywhere...the edge of the black was made by some kind of material laying on the surface being painted. Consequently, all mask lines will be "fuzzy" from paint getting slightly up under the mask. Black-out edges at the corners of the firewall varied all over from straight north-south to east-west, and all points in between.

[Kurt B.]

Thank you Chuck *NM*