Coke Machine Painting

For the coke machine paint job I contemplated with finding a local auto-body shop to do the paint job, but the general feeling I get with most of them is that few of them really care about anything other than getting as much $ as they can for doing as little as they need to do. That might sound a bit harsh, or you might say "surprise - it's called profit". Sure...but when it comes to restoration folks like me, you really want to find someone who has an interest in what they're working on, because it means you're going to receive a much better quality product. I've taken a car to get painted before over at Maaco and the whole thing looks good except a big blemish on the front of the hood and they just shrugged their shoulders and said "Hey, we said it wouldn't be perfect". Ok, shoot me for assuming you care what you're doing. I then had that redone. Another time I had a shop do a great job, then they left one area looking like they just didn't have enough paint to finish the job, so they left it like that hoping I wouldn't notice. They're all worried about covering their you-kn0w-what with the contract so you have to lose your mind arguing to get it done properly in the end.

Well, I was enjoying the summer and decided I didn't want to deal with the corporate contracts on my coke machine painting project, nor the "I paint for a living but don't care if it comes out right" mentality, so I find a friend who's father has a paint booth and does classic car paint jobs. It wasn't "in by wednesday, ready by friday", it took a few months, but it got the attention it deserved. He went through and looked for any body damage to the metal frame, replaced the metal where necessary, filled in small dents/carvings if necessary (these machines get kicked around a lot by the time you're looking at one for 'restoring'), then primed it, and painted. I'm sure if you're looking for someone local, you could find someone through Craiglist or a local car club site or something to that effect. I saw some postings for someone who wanted to trade paintwork for other merchandise...you never know what you might find. Worth checking out..

Anyhow, the paint I used was Dupont Centuri Single Stage Acrylic enamel #60807A (Red). I have to dig for the white paint code...also Dupont Centuri My paint guy had a problem with the first batch of paint I sent him, but it took a while for him to put it down, so it may have been since the paint was mixed for a different temperature...(essentially he had to do a lot of sanding because he was getting an orangepeal affect). He wasn't too thrilled with the paint, but the next batch I sent him was just fine, so who knows what was happening at the time. I'm not paint expert, but I believe this is fairly old paint technology here...it's been around a long time, and believe it or not, this stuff changes/improves to make it easier for people to use and more flexible to work with.

When it came back, it really looked good. One thing, though - if you look real closely you'll see some weld points on the cabinet. These are pretty much impossible to locate until you get paint on the shell....so keep an eye out for that when you're doing bodywork/paintwork. What it is, is the where the cabinet is welded together internally, or parts on the door which are welded, etc. Overall, I'm very happy and it looks great. The color is just right - I don't think it's the 'original' coke red color 100%, as some people state once you dig in and do a lot of research...but you look at it and it just 'looks right' and is a paint code that I found from several different sources.

I did manage to chip it in one spot inside the cabinet and found a good match was an import red touchup paint from duplicolor (available at your automotive paint shop). I didn't buy it specifically to match the coke machine, but I couldn't believe how closely it matched. I'll update this info shortly with the exact details.

Coke Machine Coin Bezel (Again)

Ok, here I am again with the famous coin bezel from the earlier re-chroming section.

This piece has taken more of my time/finances than any other piece on this machine, and I'm still not happy with it. A quick survey of some friends are all happy with it, but deep down I know it's not quite right. For now I'm going to progress so the whole project doesn't get held up with my serenade over a coke machine coin bezel.

The next step is that I need to get black on the flat surface INSIDE the bezel. Always remember, painting is like 95% preparation, 5% actual painting. If you skimp on the prep, you'll usually end up with a lackluster paint job unless you get really lucky.

If you try to paint chrome, it doesn't stick....you need something for the paint to bite into. What I did was cover all the parts with blue masking tape from Home Depot (don't use duck tape or cheap or old masking tape, you'll only drive yourself crazy cleaning it up later). The blue tape is made to be removed easily later on and doesn't leave a residue. I masked off everything and did some light sanding on the chrome. Again, be careful that you're not tearing up the masking with your sanding, and don't bring out the dremel or you'll be carving yourself a disaster. Sometimes the best way to do it, is the slow/controlled method. You just want to rough up the surface a bit and not affect the tape areas, then clean up the piece so there's no sand residue anywhere on the surface you want to paint to. Then, I created a page for the 'strange ways to paint' book... the face of this bezel is flat, with a big hole on one side for the plastic "Use correct change" lens...so I put some tape along that edge. Then I got a couple small pieces of wood and 'leveled' the bezel so it was flat on my table. Finally, I got some tough rustoleum black semigloss lacquer (nonspray) from home depot and poured it in that flat area that is surrounded by tape. I didn't put a LOT, i wasn't trying to create a swimming pool... but enough to get a good on the surface. I then let it sit there and didn't touch it or bump it or get near it for hours. I checked it a bit later and it was drying ok, and when it became just 'dry enough', i took the tape off the edge where the lens goes..which actually helped a bit as the paint hadn't quite dried yet and it was going to tear the paint up later if I waited until it was fully dry. I let it sit there for a few days and then took the rest of the tape off and it looked good. It didnt look fantastic, but honestly, it did the trick.

The last hurdle with my favorite part of this machine was the clear lens. Of course, this is another challenge, as the original piece is a half moon piece of plastic about 1"x3", it has a slight angle to it (larger at the bottom, thinner at the top), it has a cut edge around the entire face that faces outwards (so it can fit "into" the chrome bezel), and to top it all off - mine's warped from the bulb being too close to it (or being the wrong bulb)....oh yeah, it also has silkscreened lettering on it too (black background with lettering clear for the light to pass through through the lens)!!

I looked at a couple options, the main one: taking it to a company that produced reproduction lenses for automobile restorations. I didn't push this one, as I knew it wasn't going to be very cheap. The next option was creating a mold and casting a new clear lens. This was a bit intriguing since I hadn't done this in the past. My father actually had done this with some car restoration parts (not clear lenses however) and had great results. I dug around all sorts of hobby web sites and found 101 different kits and ways to do it. No matter what way I went, it was going to be $100+ to do it right. That's no so bad, but I had two hurdles - 1) I needed one part, and that was it. 2) My part was somewhat distorted on the side that faced the bulb, so i couldn't take a perfect mold from it. Maybe it would have worked, but I didn't feel like dropping $100 on a one-off 'maybe it'll be perfectly clear, maybe I can fix the mold, hopefully I get the right materials and mold products' and still have the "how do I get lettering on this thing now.

I chose the cheaper/quick route. I really want to revisit this coin bezel at somepoint, but for now what I did was get some clear lexan that I had from some other projects (Home Depot/Lowes sells the stuff), and I took my original lense and traced it with a marker on a piece of lexan. I then took my dremel (yes, the infamous 'damaging dremel') and put a cutting wheel on it and cut along the traced line. Believe it or not, this worked well! Wear safety glasses by the way, so you don't blind or hurt yourself trying to fix up a Coke machine...not really worth it! The dremel would heat up the lexan a bit, but once it cooled, you could break off melted part right along the cut edge and it came out *very* exact. I even did a little more "melting" to make it exactly curved. Now, this 'moonshape' lens won't have the 'cut' edges along the front so it sits into the coin bezel, but honestly, when you put it in the bezel and take a look, it looks fine. Not bad for a $1 worth of lexan and 10 minutes with the dremel. Hopefully this part will get reproduced so I can put in an 'authentic piece' one day.

That wasn't quite it, though... I still had to figure out the lettering. For this, I reproduced the art in photoshop (basically made a black box with 'white' for the text) and printed it on some clear 'sticker' inkjet paper from Office Depot. I just put the lens on top of the artwork, on top of a cutting board... centered it up and used an exacto knife to make it the right size. I stuck it on, and it was done. Overall, it looks ok - it's not perfect but for now it gets the job done... I'm going keep tabs on replacement parts for the coin bezel and get the right stuff as soon as I can.

Coke Machine Parts Rechroming

I decided with the restoration that I wanted to spruce up the machine a little. Originally the Cavalier 64ES model was a bit more 'spartan' in appearance than the other 64 Models. For instance, it didn't have the chrome strip that surrounded the front of the machine along the top/bottom/side edges. I guess this was the "stripped down" model. Whether that meant it was for outdoor use only, or areas that might be more succeptible to people beating on it or taking things, i'm not sure. Maybe someone just didn't want the hassle of extra parts and that's why they chose the ES model. I decided to implement some of the other 64 features in this one, as well as put some more focus on chrome detail for areas that weren't originally chrome.

I saw some other restorations and shops that went completely over the top, and I didn't exactly want the unit to be so beyond what it was originally, that you were afraid to touch the thing. I decided to get the hinges, front door handle, and 'lightbox marquee' frame chromed. Again, these were areas that weren't chrome, or even silver for that matter, but I thought it would be a nice touch.

The big challenge of the rechroming process was the coin bezel - the circular item that you put your coins into the machine at. For one, there's a half-moon shaped cutout where a plastic lens goes (this displays "Use Correct Change" if the machine cannot vend you change if you put in more than the value of the bottle). The big showstopper is just the outright design of this piece. It's this curved circle with squared off edges that stick out about an inch out, and in the center is a square area where the coins go, where there is some writing etched into the piece...and to really top the whole thing off, around that square section, it's painted black.

I took this coin bezel piece to all the places in the Detroit area...got quotes for $75-$475..JUST for that SINGLE piece. Nobody seemed all that thrilled to see me in there wanting it chromed, some seemed fairly unenthusiastic...saying "Hmm...$75 probably" as he looked at a huge tub full of faucet handles he could throw it in with ...others were more detailed "We're going to have to create a jig to set this up and pour the chrome in and...well...geesh...this is a tough one - can't you get them new?". And then there was some of the middle ground "Well, i can try it and see how it comes out, but it's a difficult piece". That being said, I didnt' feel like shelling out $500 to find out it didn't come out quite right and $100 on the offchance the other person may know what they're doing. I spoke with Steve at Funtronics (mentioned in an earlier article) and he said it might be reproduced 'someday' (probably the day I finish the project)..hah..

What I ended up doing is finding someone who was familiar with Coke machines (Again, after blowing half my day off walking through automotive chroming factories with various states of interest), I didn't want to roll the dice with someone who wasn't somewhat familiar with what I was going for here. I ended up finding a place down in Texas (again...mental note, research relocation to Texas) called Speed and Sport Chrome Plating (713) 921-0235) that I was referred to by two separate coke restoration people, and also seeing them listed in Gameroom Magazine for months.

They were really fair priced and had quick turnaround. You could even pay extra to have it turned around within 48 hours or something extremely quick. (I'm used to waiting on some shops who hold onto this stuff for months. In fact, one shop that gave me a quote on rechroming my stuff said it would be 3 months before my parts would be ready...at the earliest). I sent my stuff to them, and they called me with a quote of how much it would cost. It was fairly informal. Once again - what you should do is take a good picture of all of your parts, enclose it in the box and save a copy. It doesn't need to be an 8x10 glossy done at kinkos and laminated..but just print something so they know how many parts you're shipping and there's no "sorry, we didn't see that part...maybe it's still in the packaging which we reused and shipped to someone else". You don't want that happening to your rare pieces. The quote sounded good, I gave them the green light, and they called me in a couple weeks saying it was ready to ship back.

I received the parts and they all were individually wrapped in construction paper and looked good. Overall, I was happy with everything for the value and turnaround time. Chrome looked good, everything was polished up...but the big question - the coin piece - ugh. I wasn't happy with this piece at all. It just didn't look right. As I mentioned before, the part had some fine edges to it, and those were lost in the rechroming. I wasn't overly surprised, either.

I got busy with some other projects then had some time to come back to the coke machine and decided I wanted to do something about the coin bezel again. I find another chrome shop, Nashville Plating and spoke to Ron Satterfield who specializes in Banjos but also is familiar with Coke / Soda machines as well. Ron was a good guy to work with as well, I sent him some photos and he gave me a quote, I shipped it out and a few weeks later it was ready. Overall, It was a bit better than previously, but again - it still wasn't exactly on the mark as a lot of the fine detail was missing. I don't think that anyone could really do a good job with rechroming this part now. I think the only option is to keep it original, find a nice one, or wait for someone to reproduce it. Evidently it's a two piece assembly that is clamped together, so perhaps someone will find a way to reproduce these. Again, it's tough as I'm sure there isn't a line of people standing around waiting for this particular coin bezel...but you never know with the good 'ol Internet at your fingertips.

What did I learn from all of this - trust your instincts, and don't assume anything. Don't assume when someone says 'it'll come out great' that it will come out great in the same way you think is great. Just because something is shiny and looks like new may not be enough...perhaps your focus (like mine was) was more on the detail of the piece, not so much with "i want this to be chrome and shiny.

Coke Machine Parts and Date of Birth!

I mentioned earlier that there weren't a lot of folks out there selling coke machine parts. One of the big reasons is that there's really only one person licensed to sell official "Coke" artwork. If you want something that has 'coke' written on it, it's up to one place to have it or you're out of luck. This place is Steve Ebner's Funtronics in Middletown Maryland. Steve sells licensed decals, as well as other parts for coke machines. Steve has written books about Coke machines, and was a great person to talk to on the phone to help get my project on track with the necessary artwork. You're not calling a time-life operator or some call center to order parts from Funtronics, you're usually dealing with the main man himself, Steve.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier - he doesn't sell everything as there just isn't a huge market for this stuff out there, and so I couldn't get a few things I needed - like the proper side art for the cabinet and a few other things like the trim where you put the coins into the machine, etc. He had stuff that would 'work' for the side art, but I really wanted something to match either what was originally on the machine as it came from the factory or the artwork that was covering the 'original' when I got it.

Steve ran a tight ship and knew exactly what he did/did not have...sent me everything I needed right away...and it all came promptly.

He was able to even look up the information I provided from my copper serial number tag from the side of the machine. According to his records, the ES model from Cavalier was built in 5 separate runs, and this particular unit (based on the serial #) was built in July of 1963 at the plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee!

Coke Machine Parts Repainting

One of the toughest decisions on this machine was how to paint the internal 'silver' parts. I tried to research as much as possible, but really couldn't find anything useful out there in Internet land on what other people did. The whole project was strange - I'd find someone who did a restoration but they had two pictures - one before, one after. Once in awhile you'd find a dealer or someone on ebay that posted 50 pictures, but they were all sort of illusive. I'd call some of these dealers to find out if they sold any parts, because I would see some really unique parts they were using in restoring these machines...but half the time you couldn't even get a human on the phone! It was the strangest thing. I'm used to working on projects where somewhere..someplace..there's a dealer selling parts, artwork, whatever it may be. Here, it was like these little empires of restoration shops, and when you did get someone on the phone...they didn't have *any* parts for sale, or maybe they were for a different machine. It didn't really matter what machine, though...since whichever one you picked, odds are they would only have a few parts for it, because there were so many different machines and not enough of a market to reproduce every little part for it.

The original 'inside walls' of the coke machine was a big galvanized tub. I would have loved to leave it original - it even had some union stamp from Tennesse...but it was just too corroded on the bottom (where water would sit from the refridgeration unit). Plus, I had to have the trays match the tub...and the trays were sort of 50/50 corroded vs. non-corroded. Nothing was 'that bad', but again...once you get everything else cleaned up, this stuff would look like junk. I thought about doing an ecoat or powder coat process on the parts, but nothing quite had the color/look I was going for, and honestly, I didn't know a good shop that did this work that wouldn't charge me through the roof to do the parts. Plus, even more importantly probably, was that I had a *lot* of bits and pieces that had to match this color. If I made the inner tub and shelves one color, they had to match the other galvanized parts - the 100+ parts of the coin mech, coin holders, etc....there was so much stuff I lost count.

Unfortunately, since it was galvanized - you can't just shoot paint over the top. You have to get the galvanizing off somehow. I did a bit of everything - I read some other restorers were using some of that CLR (Calicum/Lime/Rust remover) at 50% mixed with water..and dipping parts in there for a few minutes. I tried that technique and it worked well for most of the parts. It was a bit messy, though...so I ended up re-sandblasting most of it in a sandblast cabinet just to make sure I got everything off and that the CLR wasn't lingering on the parts for when I went to paint them.

I did find some postings and did some research on the silver hammertone paint that is sold by Rustoleom. Other folks restoring coke machines had some comparisons of individual trays and said it held up the best to the bottles wearing against it, etc. On some of these parts, like the trays, the bottles sit on the trays in the cooler and slide down them, so they tend to get scratched up.

The hammertone paint is available at Home Depot and Lowes and was good stuff. I bought a ton of it...probably around 20 cans of it. I just kept running out and getting more. It's weird stuff, in that it goes down a lot more differently than normal paint. Typically you put on some thin, even coats of paint and you put a few coats on and that's it. With the 'hammertone' paint, you almost need to put on an extra heavy coat. If you don't, you don't get the hammertone look. However, if you put on TOO much, it runs, and then looks like garbage. If that happens, you just put on some more... or maybe lightly sand out the run and put some more down. If you're familiar with painting, it's all pretty much the same - "Recoat within an hour or after 48 hours". Sometimes it's "after 5 days". Well, if you get a run and want to sand it out, you better start to get good if you have 75 parts to paint, unless you want your backyard turning into a paint shop for the next month and a half. :)

In the end, I got the hang of the hammertone, but when the can would get close to running out, it might spatter the paint and then it had to be recoated. Every so often I would get a junk can and it would start spattering after using just a bit of it. I'm not sure why...but I could use another can and it would be fine. It was a bit unpredictable, but again, my goal in life was to paint and get onto other things, not paint and paint and paint all weekend long, the same things over and over. So, in the end - I'm happy with how it turned out, and the color looks great. It just took some patience. The biggest challenge was 'the tub' and mech trays. The larger the part, the more difficult it was. The tub just had some odd coating behavior - when you sprayed it, it was almost as if spraying with a spray can inside the tub was causing too much air to flow around or perhaps paint would circle back and try and land in the freshly painted area....it kept coming out 'rough'. You really had to put on heavy coats to get around this issue, or else it would come out feeling like sandpaper instead of a smooth finish.

The rest of the paint was pretty straightforward. For all the white parts, I used a white Appliance Epoxy paint from Home Depot. It goes on and sticks like crazy. I used it for the fluorescent white marquee light frame, and all the white vending U-Shape brackets that are inside the door. It went on easily and matched the 'professional' paint used on the machine itself.

Be very careful for the Epoxy paint, and any others for that matter - if you're painting, don't think you're going to shoot this stuff in your basement or out in the driveway with your cars nearby. Get as far way as possible and make sure nothing important is downwind. I had a car parked at the end of my driveway and there was just enough wind carrying the white epoxy paint and it landed all over my car and I needed a $150 trip to the detailing center to get the white flecks taken off the front of the car/windshield/top. That wasn't exactly in my weeks' budget or plans...but this sort of stuff does happen more easily than you think!

Coke Machine Cooling System

The Cavalier Coke machine project was coming along, so I decided to tackle one of the big unknowns - the cooling system. I don't know anything about cooling systems...but I did know that I didn't want to know anything about cooling systems. I mean, I'm staring at a cooling unit that has been through a lot, and it's been sitting, and rusting, and collecting dirt.. I wasn't going to have an entirely restored coke machine with some dusty old cooling system in there. However, you just can't start tearing a cooling unit apart and painting things - the Cavalier 64ES had a pretty standard cooling unit, and it operated using R12 refrigerant. That, of course, was the 'old stuff' that was used in cars, etc. You can still get the coolant, but it's not cheap. It's not super-expensive...and it's also more efficient than the 'newer' R134a refrigerant used now in automobile AC systems. Meaning, things don't have to work quite as hard to cool down when they're using R12 freon than a system filled with R134A. Problem is, you can't just swap one for the other...that would be like taking diesel fuel and filling your standard vehicle with it, just because it's supposed to be more efficient. Things stop working quickly when you pull logic out of your hat like that.

After looking at a lot of solutions out there, I ended up going with Global Compressors in Houston, Texas. I basically sent them my whole assembly in this huge box from an old Robot thing I purchased off ebay (don't ask - that's another blog entry for another snow day) and they restored as much as they could, but put in a whole new R134A cooling system and used the new parts where necessary. They even transferred over the old ID tags from my original system to keep it as authentic as possible. This wasn't cheap, but honestly, I didn't want to be monkeying around with a cooling system myself or buying parts off of the internet and trying to get someone locally to figure out how to get it assembled working for me. The folks at Global Compressor were great to work with and sent me back my unit in one piece, I installed it, and it ran great. If you go this route, be forewarned, it's not 100% authentic looking. They do use replacement items so you're not going to have exactly the same look from the original cooling unit. They gave me the option of painting my rails chrome or black, but I stuck with black for everything. Even then, the tracks they mounted on didn't fit 100% right in my coke machine. I made it work and it looks fine, but for my particular machine, it wasn't a perfect fit from the original. There's so many varieties, I know they're not sitting there with sample machines to size everything to, but if you're really really particular...you might want to go over some of the details with them before sending your stuff in.

I looked at some other places, but this seemed to be the best route for me. There's a few other places out there, but one had recently folded or stopped doing these coke machines cooling units...and a lot of the 'full time' restorers were sending their stuff to Global as well. In fact, they had just raised their prices as they were getting flooded with these units when a competitor stopped doing restorations. Evidently they work on these machines on the side...they're not the primary business, but the owners know about the 'coke machine restoration' market and that's a big plus when you're trying to restore something. You want someone who either has an interest in what you're doing, or knows what it's supposed to look like in the end. That's why I go to the trouble of sending stuff down to Houston rather than drag it around to 5 different places around Detroit with everyone rolling their eyes that another hobbiest is coming in with some headache for them to have to figure out. Sometimes you can call around and get 'the look' via the phone, even! :)

On a sidenote, I have heard folks that say the original cooling systems are really durable on these old Coke machines. In fact, everyone I spoke with said the same thing "Did you try yours yet". Evidently they can take a real beating...but I didn't feel like subjecting myself to shock or fire, so I decided not to even bother with the 'everyone stand back, i'm plugging it in' ceremony out the in driveway.

Coke Machine Media Blasting

For the Cavalier Coke Machine, I decided it to have it media blasted. A local shop that I've taken all sorts of parts to over the years was able to get it in and back to me in a few days. They did a good job with it. I essentially removed everything possible from the unit and took it to them, taking photos and numbering every item I dropped off. This is important because you want record of how many parts you're dropping off so you get that number back. When stuff gets blasted, it's sometimes going in with other people's parts, etc...so you don't want to be picking it up going "Hmm...I thought I had one more part...maybe not..." or finding out you have someone else's bracket to their '73 Dodge Charger restoration, while the guy with the Charger restoration is looking at a coke machine door hinge. This is how it looked when it came back...all the rust gone, all the paint gone. The key now is to get it primed QUICKLY. You don't wait until the week with 100% humidity to drop your machine off to get blasted...or anything for that matter. The shop is handing you bare metal...even the oils from your hands can cause problems later when it comes to painting, so you want to do this when it's dry outside, you have a logical next step for it, and you're not going to be handling it and moving it all around your garage for weeks and weeks. I got this back a little sooner than I was expecting, so I moved it into a dry area indoors and ran a dehumidifier by it. Maybe that was a bit over the top, but I've also seen metal start rusting within a day of being blasted...and when that happens, you have to blast it again...not exactly in my budget. Besides, moving this up/down the stairs and across town wasn't my idea of a fun day off!

One other tip - the front door isn't held on by magic...if you open it up, and pull straight UP, it comes off the hinges. Helpful when you're moving it around, but be careful with this trick once you paint it (before you put all the seals back) so you don't scratch it up.