Reproduced my 1915 California license plates. What do you think? ...Picture.

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NorthSouth
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First Name: Steve
Last Name: California
* REQUIRED* Type and Year of Model Ts owned: 1911 Touring, 1912 Warren Speedster
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Reproduced my 1915 California license plates. What do you think? ...Picture.

Post by NorthSouth » Thu Aug 06, 2020 12:00 am

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Reproduced my 1915 California license plates. What do you think?
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Attachments
20200805_143428.jpg
Last edited by NorthSouth on Thu Aug 06, 2020 5:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

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rbishop26
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First Name: Bob
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Re: Restored my 1915 California license plates. What do you think? ...Picture.

Post by rbishop26 » Thu Aug 06, 2020 2:40 am

WOW! Are those porcelain like the 1914's or metal? Either way, unbelievable job.
Are you for hire? :lol:
Bob Bishop
San Diego, CA
1914 touring, 1917 touring


Topic author
NorthSouth
Posts: 512
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2019 9:18 pm
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MTFCA Number: 50392

Re: Reproduced my 1915 California license plates. What do you think? ...Picture.

Post by NorthSouth » Thu Aug 06, 2020 5:27 am

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Bob,
These are metal. The originals are porcelain.
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Mark Gregush
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* REQUIRED* Type and Year of Model Ts owned: 1925 cutdown PU, 1920 Dodge touring, 1948 F2 Ford flat head 6 pickup 3 speed
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Re: Reproduced my 1915 California license plates. What do you think? ...Picture.

Post by Mark Gregush » Thu Aug 06, 2020 11:31 am

The 1915 plates were metal with porcelain coating. Did you mean painted?
http://porcelainplates.net/california_archive_2.html
I know the voices aren't real but damn they have some good ideas! :shock:

1925 Cut down pickup
1920 Dodge touring
1948 Ford F2 pickup


1194668jc
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Re: Reproduced my 1915 California license plates. What do you think? ...Picture.

Post by 1194668jc » Thu Aug 06, 2020 1:21 pm

Wow, those look great! Did you do them or did someone make them for you?


HPetrino
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Re: Reproduced my 1915 California license plates. What do you think? ...Picture.

Post by HPetrino » Thu Aug 06, 2020 3:21 pm

Nice work!!

Every time I see old CA plates it makes me think of the two red 1914 plates my grandfather used in the 1940's, '50's and early '60's to scrape apricots off the drying trays. They each had a piece of wood screwed to the upper holes so you could use them without cutting your hands. Being made of heavy meatal with porcelain on both sides they worked well. When he retired and sold the place in '63 sadly they were discarded as just more old junk. :(

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Susanne
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Re: Reproduced my 1915 California license plates. What do you think? ...Picture.

Post by Susanne » Thu Aug 06, 2020 4:04 pm

The depth of field threw me off - I thought one was smaller than the other! Beautiful work!

I've always wondered how they made the originals... I have a few, including a matched pair from '14 (red & White) and the blue and white ones (from 16-19), but the only way I could use my '15 (and it's only 1, the other one shattered the face off long ago) is to fill in the missing pieces with paint...

But it got me wondering how they made these originally, and how hard would it be to repop the porcelain plates in porcelain...


Vrayfoster
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Re: Reproduced my 1915 California license plates. What do you think? ...Picture.

Post by Vrayfoster » Thu Aug 06, 2020 5:40 pm

Dash Tag.odg
(1.62 MiB) Downloaded 109 times
Dash Tag.odg
(1.62 MiB) Downloaded 109 times
Here is the plate for my car I made about a year ago. The top is the original, the middle is printed on paper then glued on steel testing to see if it would look correct. The 5 wasn't quite correct. The last one is ink on steel. These are not street legal, but they do look nice. I also made a 1915 brass registration dash tag using the license plate number. With such good luck on the dash tag, I'm trying to make the center discs of the 1915 high F hub caps then I will attempt to solder them into repro hub caps.
Attachments
3 License plates.jpg

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Susanne
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Re: Reproduced my 1915 California license plates. What do you think? ...Picture.

Post by Susanne » Thu Aug 06, 2020 5:55 pm

The fonts are wrong on the center one but the bottom one looks good!


modeltspaz
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Re: Reproduced my 1915 California license plates. What do you think? ...Picture.

Post by modeltspaz » Thu Aug 06, 2020 8:08 pm

Suzanne,
The original porcelain-on-steel California license plates for 1914 and 1915 were made by a manufacturer in Pennsylvania called Ing-Rich. I do not know who made the 1916-1919 porcelainized plates.
The process was similar to that of producing porcelain on cast iron bathtubs, sinks, and cooking range parts, etc.
First a special firing glaze is applied to the base metal. This glaze is not much different than the glaze used for pottery. After the base color is applied, the numbers and letters are silk screened on and then the plate is fired in a kiln. From what I've been told, that's pretty much it.
Now for a little California license plate trivia. Most people believe that license plates here in California have been made by the "California Correctional Industries". This is, for the most part, true. However, the prison system (San Quentin, and while it was functioning, Alcatraz) has only been producing California license plates since 1948. Prior to that, there were only a couple of sheet metal stamping plants that produced them, and they were in Los Angeles.
I once heard a story that, sometime during 1931, a train load of 1932 California license plates were heading from L.A. to Sacramento. Somewhere along the route the train wrecked in a rural area (most of California was "Rural' in 1932) and the wreck caused the cars containing the license plates to spill out on the train tracks. Since all the license numbers were recorded on a manifest, the California Department of the Treasurer (that's the department that oversaw motor vehicle registration in those days) voided all the numbers that were lost in the wreck.
Fast forward to the 60s and 70s. Frequent swap meet attendees here in So.Cal. may remember seeing 1932 California license plates with the back of the plates painted silver or white. The reason? Those were salvaged license plates form the train wreck that had been used as roofing shingles. They were about to get a second life as Y.O.M. license plates after Governor Pete Wilson signed that bill into law.
One last bit. The process of bonding porcelain to steel or cast iron can be credited to a buddy of William Durant. His name was David Dunbar Buick. You may have heard of him.
Hope you're still awake. :lol:
Knowledge that isn't shared, is wasted knowledge.


Vrayfoster
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Re: Reproduced my 1915 California license plates. What do you think? ...Picture.

Post by Vrayfoster » Thu Aug 06, 2020 10:18 pm

Good eye spotting the wrong fonts. I took a best guess at the fonts when I made the center plate. It took several printings on paper to get the background yellow correct. I found a 15 plate and saw the font differences and corrected them before printing them on steel. The fonts on the lower plate are exactly what was on 15 plates. Using photoshop I manipulated the fonts to get them lined up correctly then off to the sign shop to print a set of plates. Ing-Rich is the Ingram-Richardson manufacturing co. in Pennsylvania The 14 plates were thicker than the 15 plates and I've found them in excellent condition.

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