Reply To: 1950's OMC painting method

[William Jatzek]

It’s a long time ago (1950’s ) but their has to be some people alive yet that worked in these outboard manufacturing plants that could still describe the paint operation and other operations. There should be some way to search them out to tell their story before it’s to late. I work for an automaker. (Ford) in an engine plant we assemble 4 and 6 cylinder engines. The engines are very precision and Ford designs the assembly process so that average workers can quickly be taught to do a precision operation. I would imagine outboard manufacturers were no different. When we restore a outboard we are doing it by hand for one engine at a time so we have to employ whatever works to get the job done. I would surmise that the original painting process employed some kind of stamped metal stencil or possibly plastic molded stencil that fit the hood perfectly and would mask areas of the hood that required different colors allowing a worker to quickly mask , spray and move on to the next engine. Regards Bill,