To paint or not to paint,

[phantomknives]

I got my first flint edge today, It's pretty nice. got a broken ear though. but not the point. If you've seen the Michigan kelly perfects with paint on them, it had some of that paint. If you haven't, its like a sky blue dye, maybe, like the stuff machinists use on aluminum. haven't seen any in person but it looks like it. anyway, paint or no paint? in case it changes your opinion, i painted the makers mark red, i do it to all my axes that have deep enough marks. one last thing, where would i even find this stuff.

 

[Hickory n steel]

I got my first flint edge today, It's pretty nice. got a broken ear though. but not the point. If you've seen the Michigan kelly perfects with paint on them, it had some of that paint. If you haven't, its like a sky blue dye, maybe, like the stuff machinists use on aluminum. haven't seen any in person but it looks like it. anyway, paint or no paint? in case it changes your opinion, i painted the makers mark red, i do it to all my axes that have deep enough marks. one last thing, where would i even find this stuff.

The stuff you're thinking of is dykem blue layout fluid , and that's exactly how I'd describe those awesome looking Kelly Michigan's .
I really don't think you could replicate this look and paing only really looks good when fresh and new, so I wouldn't bother trying to pant it . I get the feeling they probably used some kind of spectraflame paint ( a specialty translucent airbrush paint used on the original redline hot wheels as the polished metal underneath gave them that magical appearance, but it ain't cheep and requires some skill to paint with )
I say just do a good functional resto and let it pop some chips

 

[phantomknives]

took care of that today, the ear busted off a LONG time ago, right now it has an extremely nice Bingmaster semi-octagonal. its old, and there isnt any scarring on the handle where the ear would have been. think it might be one of those "big labels". the broken ear throws off the hang but i can't fix that, time to compensate, i'll see if i can get some pictures of it in a thread tomorrow. I actually really like painting the makers mark, its not hard, put a thick layer of paint over, and scrub the excess with steel wool