A very quick post, hardly worth mentioning this part I suppose but as I was pleased with the result of hardly any effort, I thought it worth a few minutes to document it:

The plastic grille was scruffy, but I kind of liked it, but there were a couple of rusty self-tapping screws embedded in the bottom which I didn’t like. So I removed these and filled the holes and repaired a chip at the bottom with filler. I gave it a light rub over with a Scotchbrite pad then washed it with a soft brush in hot soapy water.

After drying in the sun I sprayed it with Lidl’s silver wheel rim paint and was going to leave it this way:

But no, I just couldn’t let it lie, I masked everything except the space for the signage at the top, carefully taping up the outline rim:

…then sprayed it with Lidl’s matt black car paint:

I find the ‘Baufix’ paint brand sold in Lidl’s to be as good as anything and it’s so cheap I normally pick up a can whenever they have it in stock.

I removed the masking to leave this:

Again, this would have been just fine, but no, I had to interfere….

I masked off all but the lettering. I wrapped some brown paper tape around an soiled roller to make it less pliable / spongy. I sprayed silver paint directly onto the roller, then quickly rolled it over the letters, being careful not to exert too much pressure. It needed three passes (10 mins drying time between each) to fill in all the black:

And the finished result is very pleasing for a total of an hour’s effort. It’s probably too new looking if anything.

Aficionados will note that the result is incorrect as the silver is only applied to the face of the letters but it works for me.

Thanks for your interest.