Does anyone have any suggestions on possible ways to put a number on a reproduction body tag? Obviously engraving can be a last resort, but I would prefer a more "factory" look like embossing. Any ideas? What are you guys doing? Thanks
I saw someone was selling repro sets of vin number punches on ebay, but those are made to stamp the engine block. I'd imagine they'd work on a tag also though.
Number punches can be bought from most tool supply outfits in different sizes. You need to practice some to get it to look nice and even. You can buy a holder that holds maybe 10 or so punches in one line (looks kinda like a rubber hand stamp). Of course you will need a larger force to make an imprint on the metal. What also works to get the stamps nicely in a row is using a piece of 2x4 as a ruler and clamp it on top of the plaque you want to emboss. You will still have to take care to get the spacing right. Mike
I have a set of punches, but I am a little hesitant becuase it is so hard to get a good straight and clean look. Has anyone used embossing with raised letters, stamped through the back side? Like from the factory? I know some sign and placard shops do this, but it is very $$$. Any alternative ways to get embossing?
I've been thinking about how this can be done at home for some time, now. I'm thinking of using a my 12 ton shop press and thin gauge stainless steel to make a tag. What I envision is a "die" made from lucite and a firm piece of polyurethane sandwhiched between two plates of fairly thick steel. The stainless steel tag will be place between the lucite die and the polyurethane. Pressure then applied by the shop press. I'm thinking the numbers to be embossed (or any characters) could be cut into the lucite die by sandblasting. A lot like etching gl*** in that a template of thin rubber (or any sandblast resistant material) is placed over the gl*** masking what won't be blasted. The lucite should be soft enough to allow the sandblasting to etch the characters deep enough, but strong enough to withstand the pressure of the embossing. The polyurethane will be the backing that is pushes the metal of the tag into the die. Of course, the metal tag will have to be a fairly thin gauge material. This is all untested theory! But, it all looks feasible on paper!
This guy did a tag for me and it looked perfect. The dmv doesn't know one body tag from another. http://hometown.aol.com/plymouthpartsman/RatRodMacVinTags.html
I wouldn't worry too much about gettin the numbers super straight; the factory didn't on a lot of old cars. Also some numbers were lightly stamped and were somewhat faint.
Chris, I have a bunch of embossed metal plates that we have made at work for our products, but the cost of doing a one-off for my Body# is too much. I will see if I can get our vendor to give me a tour and show me how it is done. I will let you know... This may help you out on the process they use.
A couple tricks on using stamps first take a piece of paper and write down what you want to stamp on a sperate piece of paper (More on this later) Take some masking tape and run it along the bottom line of your lettering. Using a scale measure and mark on the tape the spacing of the letters depending on the size of your stamps. Take the paper mentioned earlier and put above what you are stamping and starting Backwards Take and stamp your plate referring to your reference paper after you stamp a letter.(don't laugh it is very easy to forget a letter of number) This allows you to see what you are doing. If needed practice on a piece of like material to get the hammer blows right since wide letters/numbers like W,8,M,B, etc take a bit more effort than narrow letters/numbers I,1,J, for equal depth. It takes some practice to get the hang of it. Dawg
I just did it on my sedan. bought a set of stamps from harbr freight, they make three sizes. I did some practicing on a piece of metal first to get them spaced and straight.. when I felt comfortable I hit away.. Drilled two holes and mounted it in the door jam.
Hey Guys , I wondered into this forum searching for a place to redue a vin Does anyone know where to get an embosed original reproduction of a vin as my kid threw it out with the old cowl i also need a new trim plate it is a fisher trim off my 68 vette so i need all that stuff on it with body trim and year let me know if anyone has com up with a good vin embossing guy I have a neat mako on my racer ill throw pics up when i get a chance
I sent TP from the HAMB a blank vin tag for his Merc. He found the guy that stamps them from the back side as original.. He should chime in with info......OLDBEET
http://www.datatags.com man. he wants 150 bucks! He said he would APPRECIATE it if I could give him rubbings off all my other old cars for his records. I guess so. I do him a major favor providing him the ability to make many various years vins and trims so he can capitalizeand and he f**** me with my pants down I have seen 2 other guys that do the same work for 20 each last year. I have been trying to find them
Any more info on this topic? I need cowl and/or serial number plates for a 1931 Chevrolet Coach (street rod). I have all legal do***entation/proof of ownership but our state (Nebraska) requires that an identification tag be permanently affixed to the vehicle. I just purchased this vehicle from Missouri and that apparently was not an issue back there. The original tags were so corroded that they were lost in the conversion. Now, the real problem comes in that I have the ***le for the vehicle and what is listed for identification is just the engine number and body style. So, I don't have an actual serial number. Why this is can be explained in the following link and what the tags should look like: http://1931chevrolet.com/specs6.htm Any help that anyone can provide/suggest would be most appreciated. I can provide copies of proof of ownership. And, as is the usual case, I need to have this as soon as possible to be able to license the vehicle. Many thanks in advance! Just when you think its safe to go back into the water....
Wow... Back from the dead.... This is what I found out.. way back when... There is a guy who reproduces the reverse stamped VIN tags for restorations... It is a grip of money but cool that he offers it. In my case it was overkill. When I had my car inspected here in California they really didnt care about if the plate was a factory job or not. I think since no standards had been set way back then... and no standards have been kept by the DMV for really old cars. I had my VIN etched onto a reproduction plate instead of the factory embossing or stamping. Etching is ugly, but cheap and did the trick. Rivet it on and your good to go. Best Regards, Hyfire
When Ford "A's" were comming down the ***embly line; the guy stamping the Serial numbers (VIN's) had 90 SECONDS to punch the letters and numbers on the frame. Most of them were out of line, crooked and sometimes faint. (especially on a Friday built car! ) Ford started and ended serial numbers for "A's" with a five point star. If you have trouble finding a "Star" stamp; check out Lee Valley Tools.
Yep that is right- also if a star is not at you disposal use the small "v" and appropriate space three of the "stars" 5 points! that is what the stars ended up looking like on about half of em I have seen!
Here's some tinkering I did one time just fooling around with an idea - I'm sure a industrious fella could duplicate any tag they wanted with this method - still not sure how they get the Black Paint so precise without a silkscreen, but it's a start. BTW the White and Orange "thing" above it is a ball point pen.
McMaster Carr has an embosing punch set for numbers and letters in several sizes. These are the reversed letters and numbers designed to punch from the back side which should give you that "factory" apearance your desire. The full set can get pricy, but just the numbers set isn't too bad. All you have to do is get the number set and do a lot of practice. Gene
I need to come up with a reproduction serial# plate for my '31 Chevy coupe too. Since it was attached to the wood frame and I have none of the wood it's long gone. Have the ***le with the serial # on it but no # on the car. A source for the plate would solve all(ok, one) of my problems.
I got mine from a trophy shop. Next time I take the dog to the vet I'm going to see if they have blanks when they give out rabies tags, that might work.
Lots of good info from everyone....thanks. Different states have different requirements and some will let things slide a little...ours is the opposite. I did some follow up on some of the reproduction stampers out there and called/talked to several folks over the last two days. Hey, Bigdog...sounds like you & I are in the same situation. When the wood went away most of the tags went with them. Do check out this link: http://1931chevrolet.com/specs6.htm I have exchanged emails with Bill Barker...as knowledgeable a guy on 31's as you're ever going to find as his web site is devoted only to 1931 Chevrolets. His comments were, " As my web site mentions, neither the cowl tab or ID tag contain information about the car that uniquely identifies it. You can get the ID tag reproduced but it doesn't have anything to do with you getting the car ***led." When you look at your ***le it lists just the engine serial number and not a body serial number or what we now refer to as a VIN...unless it is a Canadian. The guy at DATATAGS.COM sent email after I talked to him..." Back in '31 they registered cars via the ENGINE number there was no VIN tag. Just one that listed the engine number. I can supply one that says "Ser. No." for street rods. It's the same as the original in size but it's from a '48 Chevy. By the time they got smart and just had the one box on it for a serial number." It's $85 cash check or money order plus, provide do***entation of proof of ownership. I looked at pictures of the 48 tag and compared that to the 31 Serial Tag and except for some of the wording identifying Chevrolet now as a Division of General Motors on the 48 tag, they are very closely matched in the size, paint, and lettering that only someone like Bill Barker would notice the difference. Even the word Independance is on it. As on the new ***le, that I have, it lists the engine number as the identifying serial number...Datatag guy says that is what needs to go on the new repro tag so they match. Otherwise you get red flags. I think I'll go ahead and cough up the $85 and go that route and brad nail it to the new wood floor in the correct location in front of the p***enger seat. So now, does anyone think that I should scuff it up and make the new plate look like an antique or just leave it shiny and new? The state requires that the County Sheriff's office has to inspect & verify the car's identification on all out of state auto purchases before they can be ***led/licensed. (Another way to get $10 out of us.) Most of those guys are pretty sharp...not like in the old days. A good friend of mine built a Cobra kit car...that was a nightmare to get tagged/***led in our state. I thought he was going to die of a heart attack before he got things squared away. I trailered the car out to another county half way across the state for him to get the local star captain to inspect it. We had gotten word that this county sheriff had a p***ion for hotrods. Every place else he went, they wouldn't accept the homemade tag/stamping. mv
Thanks for the info, tweaked31. I'll have to check out DATATAGS.com. Sounds like that might be a good way to go. I'm lucky because I won't need to have the car inspected to get it licensed, but it would be nice to have it looking legal if I got stopped or decided to sell it.
i have a 31 chevy that i need to get a ***le for, since most of these cars were registered to the engine number, couldn't i take the engine number off the engine i'm putting into it (a 1950 oldsmobile rocket, out of a car that has since been s****ped) and get the guy at data tags to stamp that on a plate for me and then have it registered with that number?
Yo Br***...I think you're on to something there. As long as you have some kind of pink slip and a mounted tag that has the numbers matching, you should be ok. These days most of the people inspecting old iron won't know what to look for anyway. Datatags did a good job for me...a little pricey but worth it in that the inspection process that I went through went much easier than I thought it would. The guy spent more time ogling the car and asking questions about what it had in/on it than looking at the tag. Nice to know of another '31 owner out there....keep in touch! Do check out Bill Barker's '31 web site...he's still keeping it up to date and the guy knows his shinola if you have questions.
my problem is that i dont have any pink slips or anything for the car, i bought it from a friend and he made me a bill of sale, and gave me the body tag. thats all i have.
Ok. Not to worry...just a little more pain for you to go thru. There are several ways to get a ***le...file for a lost ***le or buy an original piece of paper ***le and get a body tag made to match whatenver number is on it or get a new builder's ***le & tag. Not sure about your state's hoops that you would have to jump thru to do the above. You might search thru this site and see what pops up in other threads regarding lost ***les/***les for CA. Buying a paper ***le might be the quickest/easiest...search the for sale area for those...they're usually not a lot of $'s and the prices will vary. Bill Barker may have something or have a lead for you...only costs an email to find out. Good luck on the search and your build! Tweaked31
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