Fw: T Type Green (amended)!

[John G. Bulcken IV]

Folks this is an amended version of some very interesting information that John Marks has asked me to forward. This supercedes the previous message on this subject. Cheers all, John TB#0398

----- Original Message ----- [b]From:[/b] instruments@vintagerestorations.com [b]To:[/b] cbrenner01@snet.net [b]Cc:[/b] emgeeone@stny.rr.com [b]Sent:[/b] Tuesday, March 12, 2002 5:15 PM [b]Subject:[/b] Re: T Type Green ----- Original Message ----- [b]From:[/b] instruments@vintagerestorations.com [b]To:[/b] cbrenner01@snet.net [b]Sent:[/b] Monday, February 25, 2002 10:14 PM [b]Subject:[/b] T Type Green [b]TC Instruments. Why Green is Green.[/b] There has been great discussion from all quarters for a long time regarding the colour of MG dials. As my company has had a considerable hand in the matter, I think it may be helpful to give some of the historical details which have resulted in the colour you have all seen for many years. As you may know my business started from a hobby back in the late sixties. At that time Thomas Richfield Ltd. traded in Broadstone Place ,London, and being part of the Smith group of companies, quite a lot of repair work was sent from the Smith works in Oxgate Lane, Cricklewood down to Richfields. Smiths repaired and built new gauges, for example pressure and temperature for TC, albeit with later 'half'" pointers, whilst Richfield concentrated on Speedometers and Revolution Counters, clock, cables and so on. At that time no one company dealt with a 'set' of dashboard instruments, switches, lamps, etc. This is where we started, and later christened our company 'The Complete Dashboard Service'. Historically Lucas usually obtained the electrical work contract for many British motor car builders, Riley, Singer, Lea Francis, and M.G. to name but a few. With this contract, for some reason, they also provided the ammeter , lamps, warning lamps and panels. So, all who search for British Jaeger original Ammeters, will not find them.! How difficult it must have been for Lucas to spray and print dials to match Smiths, unfortunately I have not been able to discover who did what, and where! One therefore had the choice of Smiths or Richfields, for gauge and speedometer work with a number of gaps in between, like the ammeter, which is where we came in. Now, regarding paint. The original Smiths equipment schedules 1937 to 1939 describe the TA/TB colour as Avon GREEN. The TC is described as Avon GREEN, Polychromatic enamel, all of which was in fact the early days of metallic paints, which as many of you will know are notorious for pigment fading, which still applies today, as you can often tell a modern car has been partly resprayed by the mismatch of depth of colour. Around 1969/70 Smiths were pad printing replacement dials, in green metallic paint, which was produced by an Ault and Wiborg colour matching machine operated by a company nearby to the Oxgate Lane factory, for speedometers and revolution counters and 2" gauge dials. But... no ammeters! At that time we began stamping out our own ammeter dial blanks, and with the co operation of Smiths, obtained the same paint code and purchased the same cellulose paint from their supplier. We were very lucky to purchase from Lucas the last remaining brand new BM ammeter bezels, after which the tooling was broken up. we had about 800 at the time and finished up restoring batches of 25 with new bezels for Gerry Goguen of Abingdon Spares. Oh, to still have some left. We understand from a colleague who spent many years at both Smiths and Richfields, that the Avon Green paint code was still current in most major paint manufacturers details in the late sixties. Due to rationalisation, and deterioration of old printing plates some of the gauge codes were a later variant. But in order to obtain a complete set to the same colour, it was necessary for us to follow what Smiths had chosen as their interpretation of the original Avon Green, not blue, bluey silver ,or anything else but Green.! Gradually Smiths took less and less interest in manufacturing and restoration work, until they finally closed and stripped the factory in early 1984, destroying and sending off for scrap metal huge quantities of material, instruments complete, components and tooling, selling the shelving and machinery in a very sad sale that we attended. The roof finally being removed to comply with requirements to no longer pay council taxes, very quickly followed by demolition and redevelopment of the site. The instrument division producing more modern instruments was sold to Lucas who located at a plant in Wales. About the same time Thomas Richfield Ltd was sold to Speedograph in Nottingham who still trade as Speedograph Richfield Ltd. Richfield continued to trade in London for a few more years before relocating in Nottingham. So, in the early seventies Green was Green, and we began filling in the gaps and providing the complete service. If you ordered from Smiths, Richfield, Nisonger in New York, Abingdon, Moss, or us, an extra gauge, the chances were it would be a match to the set . This we believe worked extremely well. We saw no reason to do further research and create another colour. As time passed we built more tooling for dial blanks and purchased printing equipment to enable us to create our own sets of dials as it became increasingly difficult to obtain anything from Smiths, as they reduced this side of their work. We received a considerable amount of help, technical advise , drawings, and on the closure of the factory, many equipment schedules, and instruments 'Standards' from them, and were also allowed to purchase a printing machine that had been taken to Wales and not used, allowing us to continue the same printing procedures. The instruments Standards books enable us, from dial codes, to determine which vehicle they were used on, together with build and calibration detail. In the early days of MG instrument restoration the lead was taken by Smiths, and what followed was a continuation of their decisions based on their own experience and factory records. We have to the best of our ability followed these principles. In latter years the British Jaeger Trade mark was not maintained , and after thirty plus years of trading and respecting the quality of the marks we have been allowed to resurrect the Trade Mark in our name at the Patent Office, So I feel we have achieved something even if the subject of the colour rumbles on! I hope this will go some way to explaining the reasons why the present colour is as it is. [b][i]John E. Marks. March 2002.[/i][/b]

[Ray]

Guys, With the below in mind, it appears the blue-ey green/green argument is somewhat pass . The post rather supports some of my thoughts on the early car body colors. The early paint formulations changed with age/sunlight/environmental exposure so it is only logical the instrumentation dials would change as well. On to other things: The silver tank controversy. I think, based on evidence of untouched one owner cars, photos, etc. that MG did in fact paint the header tanks on some cars silver. The silver was a flattish silver much like that used on some aircraft parts of that time, a time when aviation was in a golden age of interest. Why did they do something that any good bean counter could have told them was not cost effective? I think that they did so for the same reason that some of the sedans had a giant "MG" cast into braces where it would never be seen with the car assembled, and for the same reason that the "MG" octagon appears on just about everything on the car (how much did a chrome octagonal handled dipstick for the engine and tranny cost versus the just-as-useful plain wire part?). Some of you may have noticed the tiny swastikas on internal engine parts on some pre-war cars. MG was known to "gild the lily" or decorate their cars somewhat, and the silver is just another bit of that sort of thing. I further think the majority of the radiator tanks are black, but some few pre-war cars late in the TA cycle as well as the TB short-run were silver, as well as the SVW cars of some years. It is a pity that "Uncle Hermann" managed to remove so many records.... Having said all the above, I suspect that if the tank is painted black, you will never have to argue with a judge! One more thing: I know that there are a number of folks out there who can be charitably named "totally humorless". For those few, I am sure that the chatty atmosphere with loads of "dross" put to the list is irritating. My interpretation of this list is that of a gathering of MG enthusiasts at a local watering hole, where discussion of not only technical details are aired but stories are told, and jibes exchanged. Were this merely a boring technical discussion only, it would resemble a tired college professor endlessly answering many of the same questions over and over and over and over.........you get the picture. So I say, bring on the discussion, the jokes, the arguments over details, the mod ideas, the originality ideas......anything relating to the cars we love so very much. BTW, JOCK Whitney has the halogen bulbs for the taillights on sale for those who don't want the diodes! Best Regards, Ray "Remember- It's the collision with the planet that counts!"

----- Original Message ----- From: "John G. Bulcken IV" cbrenner01@snet.net> To: "MG-TABC" mg-tabc@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 11:08 PM Subject: [mg-tabc] Fw: T Type Green (amended)! Folks this is an amended version of some very interesting information that John Marks has asked me to forward. This supercedes the previous message on this subject. Cheers all, John TB#0398 ----- Original Message ----- From: Vintage Restorations To: John G Bulcken Cc: Dick Knudson Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 5:15 PM Subject: Re: T Type Green ----- Original Message ----- From: Vintage Restorations To: John G Bulcken Sent: Monday, February 25, 2002 10:14 PM Subject: T Type Green TC Instruments. Why Green is Green. There has been great discussion from all quarters for a long time regarding the colour of MG dials. As my company has had a considerable hand in the matter, I think it may be helpful to give some of the historical details which have resulted in the colour you have all seen for many years. As you may know my business started from a hobby back in the late sixties. At that time Thomas Richfield Ltd. traded in Broadstone Place ,London, and being part of the Smith group of companies, quite a lot of repair work was sent from the Smith works in Oxgate Lane, Cricklewood down to Richfields. Smiths repaired and built new gauges, for example pressure and temperature for TC, albeit with later 'half'" pointers, whilst Richfield concentrated on Speedometers and Revolution Counters, clock, cables and so on. At that time no one company dealt with a 'set' of dashboard instruments, switches, lamps, etc. This is where we started, and later christened our company 'The Complete Dashboard Service'. Historically Lucas usually obtained the electrical

[LuckyFloridaLin@aol.com]

Well Done ;O good and faithful TABC servent- Thom