How do you go about painting raised letters different color from the base? The paint that I am using is a two-part white pearl and a two part red with clear coat over the whole thing. If you check out my project journal you will see that I am trying to repaint an old coke machine.

Thank you
zapf

Just about ready to figure out how to paint the raised letters on this machine. Correct me if I am wrong but I have two options.
One just paint it all red with with the base then use a brush to paint the letters with white base then the white pearl then clear the whole machine.
or
paint it all red with clear over it, scuff the top of the letters and paint brush the pearl on top of the letters then clear the whole thing one more time...
Anyone of any other ideas???

I've done tons of Coke machines through the years. For me it's easiest to put the white base down first, then mask and apply the red base. For years what I did was spray on some spray mask (spray lat I think it's called). Then use a razor blade to cut around the letters. The cutting goes well if you do it at the bottom of the embossment where it starts to raise up. Theres' a natural point there where you can easily cut smoothly around the letters. But the drawback is that the paint didn't go down that far originally. Originally it ended at the top of the embossment as it was rolled or pad printed on.
I have a vinyl cutter now and usually cut out the script as a mask now to get the white to end at the original spot. But this is alot of work and almost every machine has a slightly different size or shape of embossment.
I've seen some sign painters do this by hand with nice results too.

Larry

My brother-n-law had his coke machine re-done about a year ago. The guy who did the job stripped the machine down to bare metal looked alot like you journal pictures... anyway what he did was tape a piece of etching paper (usually found in hobby stores) and did a charcole rubbing of the raised letters. He took the letters to a vynle printing place that cut the charcole rubbings out and transfered the letters to vynle stickers. He then shot the white base, put the stickers on the letters and shot the red base, pealed the stickers off and cleared. I saw it when the paper was taped on after he finished the charcole rubbing, then again when he was pealing the stickers off after shooting the red. It looks real good (at least I think). Anyway maybe that will help. I imagine after you made the rubbing, you could get some of that clear sticker paper lay it on top of the rubbing and cut it yourself with an exacto knife or razor blade. Just my two cents, at least it may give you some ideas...

Bill