Horn push repair

[chrisvine]

My horn push hasn't faired too well and has many fissures propagating from the surface. It's hard to get a good picture but hopefully the photo below captures the problem. Some have reached the base causing the gold layer to lift away, resulting in the loss of the gold colour (bottom right).

Does anyone know what the clear layer is made of and any ideas on whether it can be repaired with a liquid filler (similar to how they repair windscreen cracks)?

I realise that it won't be possible to get back the gold colour in the couple of areas where it has lifted but I could live with that as I'd prefer not to fit a repro one due to the colour difference. I can't understand why the usuals haven't got the manufacturer to address the colour mismatch.

[Heuer]

Originals come up regularly on eBay but the price is going up - ?157 for this one: http://etypeuk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5465

The top is hard plastic and I don't think a repair is possible as the logo and other detail was moulded in, a transfer applied and a protective grey coat added. In fact I am not even sure you can successfully dismantle it - levering up the three metal tabs either causes them to break or damages the button.

[ChrisC]

Agreed on the tabs breaking... its very easy to do so be extremely careful

i was hoping I could fix my original push but I broke the tab very easily turning the whole unit into junk. It now sits on my original steering wheel hanging on my office wall as "jaguar art".

Shame really because the modern repro's are a much paler gold colour

[chrisvine]

David, Chris,

Thanks for the responses. As the cracks are on the upper surface, I was hoping that if it was possible to repair, it could be done without dismantling.

One suggestion that might work was a low viscosity clear acrylic UV adhesive which would be drawn into the cracks by capillary action. The problem might be if the adhesive causes the surface becomes opaque/cloudy when it's applied.

Chris

[PeterCrespin]

David, Chris,

Thanks for the responses. As the cracks are on the upper surface, I was hoping that if it was possible to repair, it could be done without dismantling.

One suggestion that might work was a low viscosity clear acrylic UV adhesive which would be drawn into the cracks by capillary action. Chris

The cracks are all the way through the acrylic so no amount of polish or surface treatment will fix them. The cracks are too fine for capillary action of anything like an adhesive and show up IMO. They show because of air getting in and altering the refractive index causing internal reflection/diffusion of light that I don't think anything can fix 'after the fact'. Try bending a transparent plastic ruler until it gets the same type of cracking well before it actually snaps. I don't think there's much you can do.

However, the emblems on E-type hub caps are the same part as far as I can tell by inspecting the centre section. How you'd effect a transplant is a different matter but if you find a clean hub cap that could be your source for a correct tint badge. I suppose swapping the cracked one to the hub cap would be no disadvantage as far few people will see those close up compared to the horn push.

Pete