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@clubman might know how these were done. I think they were probably enamelled originally and he knows a thing or two about proper enamelling.
Application of the colour might have been done a bit like tampo, rolled on with a squeegee and maybe the excess scraped off if done by hand. Then oven cured which flows it out evenly on the surface. Polished up at the end. Just speculating though, I don’t actually know.
I’ve always felt that brass headbadges must have been quite an expensive item to put on a frame. First a set of stamps would have been made up to cut the shape out and then press the features into the badge, then the colouring, curing and polishing. It’s quite a lot of work!
Jonny69-
I was thinking deeper profile initially, sprayed (cured whatever), the top of the profile machined off, then polished. Something like that would be the least manual work and most consistent result. Not sure about the machining, way outside my area of expertise!
@SideshowBob this badge looked pretty cool just polished brass. I made a few slips masking though so cut some lines into it 😑 No turning back at that point. FYI for anyone else, you just need light pressure with the knife!
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That haa jogged my memory though, I think I saw that these days a mask would be put on the blank, then the profile cut, then sprayed, then mask removed. So the infill would perfectly match the profile. Don’t know if that was possible bitd.
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I'm afraid I only know about stove enamel, which is really just paint cured in an oven. A finish which 'flows out' when cured sounds like vitreous enamel, which I don't think was ever used for these badges.
The photo below shows my attempt at restoring a brass badge. I polished the brass, stoved it black, flatted off the paint on the high points and then gave it a coat of stoving lacquer.
I think Veloham's result is better than mine.
Incidentally, this Duckett frame is thought to be the only known pre-war solo example of the marque, although there is a tandem. Mine is probably 1920's and is the only 'lightweight' I've seen which came with Westwood rims. The firm advertised in the fifties and sixties with the slogan 'Wise men in the East go to Ducketts for their wheels'
veloham
clubman
I was very tempted to have another go at the black background but I think I just have to say this is the best I can do. A fair amount of trial and error to get here. Some spots are better than others but in places there is barely any profile to the star and border, also the letters are not very deep and dents and dings didn't help.
I'm not sure how this is done in production - I guess when new, the profile is much better. I'd be interested if anyone knows!
Following tips on another forum I used chrome 'Bare Metal Foil' to mask the star and border and airbrushed the black background. I found it really hard cutting the mask, as I say there was barely any profile to run the knife along. Before this I hadn't used an airbrush before and even this final attempt isn't perfect - I think I needed to thin the enamel a little more to avoid the few bubbles.
I did the background first thinking the lettering would be easy, but it was a royal pita. I thought a flood fill and wipe would do it, but the curvature of the badge, shallowness of the letters and dings made it really tricky. I pretty much had to do one letter at a time and clean up the edges with toothpicks. [Cotton buds were another mistake along the way :)] Needless to say I effed up the background while doing the lettering so had to do that again afterwards.
I did a final polish with Autosol and applied a matt lacquer but think I might have buffed off most of the lacquer. Dunno quite what to do, the brass dulls pretty quickly, maybe I'll give it another coat.