Several years ago when I last wrote about colors for our Michigan, we were strongly headed for grey.  Since that time, we have learned that there are several other grey Michigans. So, nope, we aren’t doing that.  We’d rather not be too common in a rather narrow field of surviving Michigans, so we looked closer at browns and greens.  We are aware of only one Michigan that is green, and that one appears to have been repainted and is sitting in a remote barn, unrestored.

The MIchigan Paint brochure (in the Nuts & Bolts, Paint section) indicates that they manufactured cars in “golden auto-brown” and “deep olive green”.  That description is both helpful and spectacularly vague all at the same time. We started trying to figure out colors in November of 2015, by contacting Jim (Jimmy Chips) Wells at the Auto Color Library at TCP Global.  We were fortunate enough to have this unique resource for AUTHENTIC old automobile colors here in San Diego.

Jim helped us using another remarkable resource, the Horseless Carriage Club Gazette of March/April 2005 (Vol.67, No.2) which collects together an amazing spectrum of colors for early cars & buggies. It is probably one of the best, if not THE best collection of color chips available for folks with cars before the 1930’s, with a focus on the 1910’s.

HCCA Gazette March/April 2005, page 32

Using The Auto Color Library and the Gazette, we had TCP Global do several spray outs of different colors. Then time passed……………………………… it does that.  With no regard to what YOU may think about it.

By November of 2018, Janet & I, (along with the encouragement of my Dad and a trip or two to the Nethercutt Museum in Sylmar, California to look at beautifully painted vintage cars) had finally settled on olive green as the color for our car. Time for an interesting story that has nothing to do with paint. (Well, I think it’s interesting and this is MY blog, so here goes.)  The Nethercutt is a great automobile  (and other things) museum. https://www.nethercuttcollection.org

My Dad & I have a connection to the Nethercutt and its founder, J.B. Nethercutt. My Dad, Vince, was a elementary school principal in Santa Monica from the early 1950’s until 1968, when he became an assistant superintendent in Santa Ana.  During the 1950’s & 1960’s Dr. Sydney Wittorf was the dentist for the Santa Monica Schools. My Dad met Dr. Wittorf in the process of being a principal there and Dr. Wittorf became our dentist. He was a really fine dentist who was genuinely interested in kids. I remember getting some small blobs of mercury from him (with appropriate cautionary instructions not to eat it and wash hands after touching it) for my home chemistry lab. Anyway, Dr. Wittorf grew up in Santa Monica, and so did J.B. Nethercutt who worked for his aunt, the creator of a small cosmetics company named after her called Merle Norman. The story I was told is that both Sydney & J.B. used to spoon cosmetics into jars and do deliveries of Merle Norman Cosmetics. https://www.merlenorman.com/page-show?cid=our-history

They and their respective families became life long friends. From my earliest memories of going to the dentist up to about age 20, when I was in the dentist’s chair with my mouth full of tools, Dr. Wittorf would tell me stories about fancy old cars with names I’d never heard of. “Craig, you won’t believe this. Last weekend I got to drive two Duesenbergs.”   I knew Dr. Wittorf. I knew about Duesenberg cars. I’d heard of Merle Norman Cosmetics. But I didn’t know the name Nethercutt until many years later. I understand that J.B. Nethercutt died in 2004 at age 91. Dr. Wittorf died in 2014, aged 101. If Nethercutt was as fine a person as Dr. Wittorf, he must have been a great guy. And what a museum!

O.K., back to car paint. Deep olive green.

We had TCP Global do a few more spray outs to focus solely on olive greens and eventually decided on a color called “Olive Green Deep” that was manufactured by Valentine & Company (later the Valspar company). The color was found on page 32 of the Horseless Carriage Gazette from March/April 2005.

Fast forward to August 2019, I had gotten a pint can of acrylic paint left over from the TCP Global spray outs. It wasn’t a full pint, but enough to do one door of the Michigan and a bit more. I sprayed it to see what “olive green deep” looked like. We liked it.  Bandit (the dog) didn’t really express an opinion, although I am sure she will want to ride in the Michigan when it is finished.)

Ignore the orange peel, it polished out. And the dog doesn’t care.

Green door on original black body (not sanded).

Fast forward again to July 2020, I’m sanding and getting ready to paint the body.  A gallon of Acrylic Urethane “Restoration Shop” paint (HC-32-10 Olive Green Deep, 1912 Michigan) was ordered from TCP Global.  My Dad got a “Covid-free” ride down from Fresno with my sister, Susan & niece, Amanda to help me sand, shoot primer, sand, and maybe shoot green over the next week.

Block sanding primer on the body. Notice crouched awkward sanding position – even sitting on a bucket.

My Dad, Susan & Amanda arrived on July 19, 2020, avoiding all Covid exposure and doing recon on where you can find a bathroom on the 350 mile trip between Fresno and Carlsbad. (Hey!  Pitstops are a real thing. Covid-19 has made many things rather difficult.)  We celebrated Susan’s birthday #LXV, (that’s in Latin) and then got to work. First we raised the height of the body on its platform to a better working height. My back is LXVI years old and my Dad’s is XCIII, so a comfortable working height is important.   I re-used the box my Motor Rotor came in (see Blog Post: Getting Ready for Re-Assembly, January 5, 2018)

Pop & Motor Rotor box.

Body hovers over box on rolling platform.

Sanders take a break to say, Hi!

Plastic sheet spray booth is ready to prime.

Spray bunny heads for the doors. Pop keeps the bunny’s air lines untangled.

Primed body.

On July 27, 2020 we shot the green paint.  All went pretty well until my fabulously expensive Harbor Freight – Maximo Cheapo #62300, purple paint shooter decided to take a dump and simply stay ON. (And yes, it had been scrupulously cleaned in solvent.) When this happened, I opted to just keep moving and smile.  Fortunately there was only a small amount of paint left in the gun and I finished about 2 minutes later. The paint was green, the air could have turned blue. But I behaved myself. Dad would not approve. A new — many times more expensive — paint shooter has been ordered.

GREEN!

Green doors three. Or, Behind the Green Doors.

So what is left to paint?  Door hinges, the four hood panels and the left rear door (the first painted green, but it had a chip when the molding was re-attached.)  All will be shot when the new shooter arrives.

My first project after the months long landscaping hiatus, was an assessment of the leather door cards.  Here is what they looked like – pretty much the way we found them back in Steve Dickey’s Hebron barn in September 2011. (Yeah…. a while ago.)

Door Card – Right Front

Door Card – Right Rear

Door Card – Left Front

Door card – Left rear

Each leather door card had issues.  The right front was in the best condition – by far, but even it was stiff, brittle and had some minor tears.  My quest was to see if some of the supposed “leather rejuvenators” and leather repair methods worked.  My assessment is – sort of. After considerable effort, NONE of these things look new or un-flawed. But, they are original to the car. The right rear door card is a complete loss. Portions had been EATEN by some of the numerous rodents and other vermin that called our MICHIGAN’s upholstery home for decades.

I used backing material (blue jean patches) in areas that had holes kicked into them and long tears and filler materials where the tears came together. Black leather dye was applied in places where the original surface was gone and where the filler showed.

All of the material was saturated with neats foot oil multiple times. It was truly amazing how thirsty this 108 year old leather was. I did as many as 10 applications and it all soaked in (when left overnight or in the sun).

Neats foot oil & right front door card.

Here’s what the completed (but not installed) door cards looked like:

Left front door card, after repair, before installation.

Left rear door card repaired & installed with nickel plated trims.

What you cannot see or feel is that these door cards are now much more flexible and usable.  Before treatment they were almost as brittle as crackers.  The flaps bend upwards when the twist lock / turn button fasteners are opened, allowing for storage between the inside of the door card and the metal door panel. All of the doors on the MICHIGAN have this feature except the right front door which is immediately adjacent to the gear shifter & hand brake lever. (Remember, this is a right hand drive automobile.)  We will see what our upholsterer wants for new door cards.  We will have to replace one of them – the right rear door. The others may stay or go, depending on cost. Our goal is to have a fairly original car, but the contrast may be so much that we will be compelled to replace them all.  We will see.

The work on the MICHIGAN really started to slow down July 1, 2019, when we commenced a major front & backyard landscaping project we had been thinking about since 2014 and earlier. We had the plans for 5 years, but Janet & I had been putting it off mostly because we really dislike the disruption caused by construction activity. Routines stop and reset according to what the construction guys have in mind. The MICHIGAN got neglected while we tore up the the yards, removed trees, installed an outside kitchen & BBQ, enlarged a patio, added a patio shade structure, removed lawns, put in a new lawn, converted all irrigation to drip and low volume sprinklers. Oh…. and there was the new brickwork, and pathways and path lights and garbage can enclosure and gate and plantings and mulch and fruit trees and….. well you get the idea.  But wait, there was also the tortoise enclosure and pond and fountain and…. all together it was a major deal. No time for the MICHIGAN until the landscape work was finally finished in early February 2020.

Rancho Tortuga – with fountain, pond and Rocky outside her condo.

And then came the Covid-19 shut down with all its disruptions to life as we know it. I really didn’t get back into MICHIGAN work until about April 2020.