The headbadge from my 1980 (ish) Nishiki is in need of repair. The small yellow and blue section are fine, but the red sections (not sure if it's paint, or some kind of plastic) are missing.

Any sugguestions?

I tried painting it with a small brush, as well as masking & spray painting....but don't like the messy looking results.

And yes...I did look on eBay, but the only one I've seen their lately was the wrong type and was in worse shape than mine.

Can you post a picture of the badge? And why do the results of masking and spraying look messy?

I'll try to post a pic later tonight (in the middle of preparing my taxes -- yuck). I'm not satisfied with the results because unlike the small blue/yellow sections, which are smooth and glossy (almost like melted plastic), the red sections that I tried to paint are dull and bumpy.

Here's a blurry photo (sorry, my camera doesn't have a macro lens). I've removed the red paint I tried to add earlier.

Sounds like maybe it a 'cloisonne' fired enamel type, in which case you'll have a bugger of a time matching the existing sections.

That looks quite similar to the head badge on the Marina I once had. Mine was relatively intact. If you search for Marina in this forum, you should find the thread.

I once had good success filling in a metal pin using crayon shavings and a heat gun/blow dryer. Just shave the color you want, fill the desired area, and heat to flow the material. I don't know how robust that would be on a head badge (weather and all), but maybe you could seal it with clear nail polish.

Or, you could just use the appropriate colored nail polish and drop it in on from the pointy end of a toothpick. The calipary action wicks it into the corners and crevices pretty neatly. This method works great with Testors enamel on my Wilson 1911 target sights.

John D.

one of my secrets - I repair cloisonne sometimes...paint the base color and then fill the cloison with cyanoacrylate glue (super glue). It'll take many applications to fill the cloison flat with the rest of the piece, but it looks just like glass when you're done. And I am pretty sure that it'd be durable as well...

Now that's clever.