johnsmachines

The corners had broken off and were lost.  The plastic badge was quite bent and distorted.  There were traces of silver paint on the surface of the lettering.

The two plastic badges on my Master 2500 were in a sorry state.

the Master 2500 label had corners broken off at the attaching screws, and the “World Turns On Colchester Lathes” round emblem had broken into multiple pieces, with some of the pieces missing.  The plastic material of both badges was quite crumbly.

I removed the badges, retrieved the larger pieces and wrapped them in packaging tape until I could deal with them.

When I removed the disc it fell apart into multiple fragments

I considered my options…

1.  Buy new badges.  None available from Colchester suppliers.  I have never seen any on Ebay.
2. Scan the badges and print new ones with a 3D printer.  No one that I know has a scanner which would do this.  Also, the round badge is in pretty bad condition even for scanning.
3. Draw up new badges and CNC them in aluminium or MDF.  I might end up doing this.  I have drawn up the round badge, but I cannot exactly reproduce the graphics.  I will keep this method in reserve.
4. Patch the existing badges.   This is what I did.  It might not be the permanent solution, but it will do for the time being.  Read on.

Firstly   I glued the round badge together as accurately as possible.  This was difficult because the plastic was crumbly, and the plastic was distorted, not flat.

Then I cut some 3mm aluminium sheet slightly larger than the existing badges.

Then I used 5 minute Araldite to glue the original badges to the aluminium sheet.  I do not know what the plastic type is, so I am not sure that the plastic will adhere with the Araldite to the aluminium, but I did score both surfaces.

Gluing the badges to the aluminium backing plates.  I used a generous volume of Araldite to fill the gaps.

After the Araldite set, I used a linisher to reduce the aluminium edges level with the plastic edges.

I used epoxy metal repair to fill the gaps.

I used a sharp knife to trim to shape, before the epoxy set hard.  After it set hard, I used a file to shape it further.

Epoxy filler.  The aluminium backing adds to the security of the repair.

Some of the letters were missing.  I used a sharp knife to shape the replacement letters.  Not perfect, but not bad?

After a couple of hours of delicate work, it is not looking too bad?

I decided to paint the entire badges.  I had found some traces of silver colouring on the letters, so I suspect that the originals were painted.  Maybe just the raised surfaces were painted.  However I decided to paint the entire surface, thinking that the paint would add some integrity to the patches.  ie…  held together with paint.   Hey, if it doesn’t last I will go to plan B,   OK?

The badges with some primer.   I quite like this colour.  It does go quite well with the lathe.    Some of the cracks still show, but it is not too bad. Yes??

I will post some pics of the badges on the lathe next time.