MTFCA Forum

I've had lots of 1913 KW Coilboxes, but not like this one. I restored this one with the guidance of R.V. I like his method. The switch is NOS.

Beautiful !!

Mine is wearing the wrong lid, and was rather poorly refurbished at some point. I overhauled the switch, how were you so lucky as to get a new old stock one ?
I'm jealous !

Im getting by, the box was badly re-glued, glue filling the finger joints where the panels were a little warped.

I bought the switch off E Bay.

Weren’t the ‘13 KW coil boxes painted black “Originally”?

Original Smith wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 23, 2020 10:51 am

I bought the switch off E Bay.

Gonna start calling you "Lucky Larry" !

Painted black ? I doubt it, as both sides of the dash were "natural" finish. When the metal boxes appeared on the 1914 models, and everything was painted black, I'm sure they were, too. Larry ? R. V. ?

I’m interested to see what Larry or RV says about finish and if that is documented in prints or something. I’ve seen them both ways and generally assumed many may have originally been black.

Adam, you have an interesting point. I saw one black KW box at Chickasha once. I've had over a half dozen original '13 coil boxes, and none have had a black finish. I purchased one at the Luray meet last month and it is unpainted.

There is very, very little information at the Archives about the early coils and boxes, but there are a few tidbits here and there. For example, I was able to confirm that the 09-10 cars had the magneto wire going to the coilbox terminal on the passenger side, not the driver's. I have seen a few black painted boxes but have not been able to confirm that such was ever done by Ford or by K-W. Probably the best way available to us to determine if the black is "original" would be to look under the latches and the switch to see if there's paint under either of them. Other clues might be paint slopped over onto those, with none underneath. Of course that would not be definitive proof one way or the other but it's probably the best we'll be able to do.

What is the proper finish for the coilbox?
Stain and clear coat. Or just a clear coat?

R.V. is the expert, but I believe stain and then a clear coat. He told me to use Minnwax Helmsman spar varnish, which is easy to use. I put on four coats, and sanded between each coat with 320. The pictures speak for themselves.

Here is a BLACK 1913 KW carcass that I've had for some time. It clearly was painted over after being stained originally.