Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums Showcase and Stories, Petroliana Rust-Oleum Restoration

Today I installed the ad glasses. I was asked to document how I did it. I called GPH, and they said you have to clearance the rubber for the corners, or they make an acrylic ad glass with radius corners. I suspected this was to be the case. Here's what I did. Start by marking the center of the opening. Start installing the rubber around the opening starting at the mark. Trim the excess. Complete the install of the rubber all the way around.

You can lay the glass on top of the rubber and get a general idea where the corners will land. I used a sharp razor blade to cut through the inside flange of the rubber. The I cut a little further around the radius. This does not need to be very much, about 3/4" from the first.

Once all four corners are cut, pull the rubber out. You have to whittle out the inner flange for the glass to extend past the rubber. Using a sharp utility knife carve away the inner flange between the two cuts. Once all four corners are carved out reinstall the rubber around the opening.

Next is to carefully work the glass in and under the flange. I started on the long edge without the the cut where ends of the rubber where it butts together. This is a bit stressful, you have to keep pressure on the glass, but if you push too hard in one spot you'll break the glass. This is a bit hard to describe and document, but it's a 3 step process. You have to get the rubber in to pull up and over the glass. Fist you get the glass to kind-of go into position. Then you use a full flathead screw driver to pull one corner of the rubber inside the opening. You have to then slide the screw driver down the length of one of the edge. The rubber won't really just go over the edge until all sides are "roughed in". Once you get the glass "roughed in" you can use a paint can key to go under the rubber flange and pull it up and over the glass. The glass won't fully seat until all four edges are in the rubber.

Here you can see how the glass isn't seated in the rubber. You have to pull the rubber back before the glass will seat.

Paint can keys work great to pull the rubber back, up, and over the glass edge.

Here's what it looks like once installed.

You can jockey the glass around in the rubber once it's fully installed in the rubber to adjust the centering of the word. I will say the fit of the glass and the rubber is not the best, but it's the best we have. If I do this again, I think I'd use double sided tape instead of the rubber.

Installed on the pump.

So, that is how you fit a square peg into a round hole! Nicely done.

I cut in the lower doors on Sunday. Just put the second coat on the inside tonight

First coat on the outside. This time I'm trying adding a little hardner in the paint. The hardner is made for another brand of paint, so we'll see how this goes. Thinned down the paint a bit, and rolled it out.

Here's the latest on the project. I had two coats on the lowers up to this point. The white is really tough to work with. It is as thick as latex house paint and won't lay down nice at all without thinning, but here's the catch, when it's thinned, it has very poor coverage. I tried to sand out the peel, but there's just not much coverage. I'm going to try more coats. On the plus side, the hardner really seems to help. It drys quicker and seems harder when dry. You can feel it when cutting it with the sandpaper.

I've learned that the white paint will only level out just so much. I have tried for hours to get the orange peel out, but there is still some that just won't come out. It looks ok though. Just don't expect that perfectly flat liquid mirror look that comes with base/clear.

Experimenting with some layouts