I'm a new member who's trying some light restoration of a Bennett 646 (to convert it to a an electric car charger).
One thing I wanted to do was restore the sight glass "must be full" tag to readability. Looking around online, I found places that
suggested it was polished aluminum, so that seemed easy enough. I decided to use some steel wool with the intent of polishing it up then repainting the black background.
But I quickly found that the polishing was removing the silver aluminum color -- in fact, it looks like brass underneath. Here's a picture; the "A" in "GLASS" is obviously where I started doing this.
Any suggestions about the silver color? Was the original made of brass that was aluminum coated and now easily flakes off, or something like that? I guess I don't care too much if it's brass colored on a black background when I'm done, but I'm curious, and all things being equal I would like to keep it looking as it originally did. Thanks!