Chiff and Fipple Forums

Hi all -- does anyone know anything about touching up damaged finishes on Clarke Originals? I managed to scratch mine pretty badly with a poorly-installed metal snap on a (Clarke-branded!) pouch. I contacted Clarke, who said that the finish is a baked-on powder coat. (They didn't say how they did this without causing the solder holding the whistle together to melt, but I didn't think to ask, either.) The official word is that it's unrepairable, but I suspect some here might have had experience to the contrary. I'm thinking either carefully applied organic solvents or carefully applied automotive touch-up paint. That said, I don't know how deep the scratch is, and whether it makes any difference if it's penetrated the tin plating.

Meanwhile, the gold paint on the "E" in the Clarke logo has started rubbing off as well; it's a very small patch, but noticeable. I've seen people here advising on how to remove the gold diamonds, and noting that the gold paint is much less robust than the black. (I used to think the diamonds a bit gaudy, myself, but they've grown on me.) Again, I'm thinking of either using a solvent to try to "bleed" the nearby gold paint into the missing part, or trying touch-up paint.

Any recommendations before I start fiddling with this thing?

Embrace the flaw.

It still sounds like a whistle and nobody will ever notice.

Or, get a new Clarke. Its not worth your time to fix a scratch, spend it making music

inadequate wrote:Embrace the flaw.

I appreciate the sentiment, but the scratch is prominent enough that I feel it every time I hold it to play. I'm not against older instruments acquiring their share of character (and indeed I wouldn't've asked about the touch-up for the logo except it was topical), but this is a reminder of that one time I wasn't careful getting the thing out of its pouch, and that riles me. If it got its scars from my cat chewing on it, that'd be a different story altogether. (That said, my cat has no interest in chewing on my whistles. My brother's cat, on the other hand....)

Sounds like powder coated paint, not a lot you can do, if you can find a touch up paint similar in shade, that would be your best option, I would think. Otherwise, as you say it is the 'feel' of it, you could just rub down the edges with some very fine sandpaper, just to make it smooth. It is unlikely to go rusty, because you wipe it down occassionally, don't you.

I use black fingernail polish.

Opisthokont wrote:I contacted Clarke, who said that the finish is a baked-on powder coat. (They didn't say how they did this without causing the solder holding the whistle together to melt, but I didn't think to ask, either.)

Just 'cause I'm a geek -- baking of coatings is often done at around 100-150° C. Solders generally melt around180-200° C.

I'm with Jerry, try a little nail polish. If you're leery of that, then try some auto touch-up paint.

Black nail polish should do the trick but if you want to try something super fast and easy, try using a black permanentSharpie. If you don't like the results you can always try the nail polish.
I have a dark navy blue car and I've used a black sharpie on small scratches in it's finish. From a couple of feet away, it's very convincing.For larger scratches, I got some OEM touch-up paint.

Per your question about the coating, I do not know what they use now, but historically, it would have been a mixture of asphaltum and varnish that would indeed be coated and then baked on, certainly at a temperature that would be low enough to prevent the solder from running. This was done both in the factory and as an after-market cottage industry where the tin-wares were coated and painted. Hope this helps.

historically, it would have been a mixture of asphaltum and varnish that would indeed be coated and then baked on,

Dannatt writes about the post war period :

It was not possible at that time to have the sheets of tin plate printed with the black colour so the brothers made the Tinwhistles in natural tin plate and then dipped them in whatever paint they were able to obtain.

And elsewhere again mentions the postwar 'single colour dip process'. The 'printing on tinplate' is also repeatedly mentioned, whatever that means. Later 'dry resin paint, baked on in the oven' took over. A variety of processes used over time.