The HMG glass lacquer can give a lovely deep translucent finish, but it takes several coats well thinned down to achieve it, and you can’t do that with an aerosol rattle can as the paint in them has too much pigment in it, and by the time that you have got a good thick layer built up you have lost the translucent effect ! I have sprayed it thinned down with ordinary premium grade cellulose thinners, allowing an hour or so between coats, and in warm conditions, with good results. Paint finishes will always fail first on sharp edges, and on a Scott barrel that means the top edge where either the water-dome or the cylinder head sits, not helped by slight seepage of glycol antifreeze through the gasket joint. I therefore do NOT mask off the top flange on a blind-head barrel. This seems to help the life of the finish.
I have had nickel plated barrels through my hands on a couple of occasions, and both were blind-head barrels. I’ve never seen a detachable-head barrel with original plating.
Brian
