I do not do my own cabinet restorations on my sets as I just don't have the skill/artistic nature to do so. There is a wonderful older gentleman who has been refinishing wood in my area for over 40 years that I trust with all of my pieces. He called me yesterday to say he's stuck on one of my sets. When I originaly dropped of the set we looked at the knobs together and he thought that he could recreate the gold trim on the knob because it was in a recess, apon deeper inspection he found that this was not the case. He says that he is not able to draw able to recreate the trim freehand and wanted to know what I want to do. My thought was to have the knobs placed on some sort of slowly rotating shaft with a marker? attached to some kind of retractable device like a drill press that would drop down and paint the circle as the knob rotated below. It sounds like it would work in theory but I thought I'd get some advice before venturing out on my own in this one. Any one have any other ideas, or some advice on how I could rig my idea?

Too bad they're not recessed..

I was thinking some kind of mask/spray setup..

Tough one

Easy one. Get yourself a mylar circle template, or have one custom-made (cheap).

I would use a circle template and a Rapidograph drafting pen, filled with white acrylic paint.

Brett

Like he said go to the craft store like Michaels they have plastic clear templates with all kinds of shapes on them. Your bound to find a circle that size on one then use a soft stencil brush with very dry paint amounts a couple coats

That's a great idea! It may take some development to get the paint mix just right. Also you would use the drafting ink technique of spacing the template slightly above the surface so paint can't wick under it and smudge. (Has anyone else drawn with ink on linen? )

My first thought was a stub shaft in a very slow lathe with a paint marker - maybe turn by hand. It might take several applications to get good solid color.

Also it should be protected under a heavy layer of clear lacquer.

Actually, if you wanted to get interesting, you could put those knobs in a vertical lathe and simply cut a channel on top of the rings. That way, you could easily do the rings and they would be LONG lasting. It would barely be discernable in visual inspection.

Certainly. I have done a fair bit of ink work on hobby projects, and that is about the best way to do fine lines.

Brett

This is one thing I'm really considering. My cabinet guy would be easily able to do the gold rings if I had the channels cut into the knobs. I'm going to take a look at templates also and do some trial runs on something else.

I ran into this problem a few years ago. I had a machinist friend scribe a recess into the surface with the knobs mounted on a wood lathe. Then I filled in the recess with paint. Worked awesome.

My cabinet guy gave an interesting suggestion of using a decal for the circles. I think cutting the channel and filling with paint would be easier but it got me thinking. How do you suppose the factory made the circles in the first place? Could they have been decals from the factory?

I would presume that they were stamped. That could work, too, just get someone to make you a custom stamp and then rig something to center it.

Brett

Michaels will have an artists compass. Just put the proper paint pen in the holder and scribe your circle. The hard part is finding the exact center and thats not so bad.