Britbike forum Forums British Motorcycle specific Brands Norton bulletin board Model 7 - Gloss or Semigloss ?

A thread on another forum not a million miles away is asking this question.

The answer is GLOSS.
The black stoved enamel on Nortons of this era was renowned for its deep lustrous gloss black enamel.
Stoved enamel - as in baked.And applied by dipping, mostly.
You can sometimes see the run and drip marks.

This is a sample of a 49 lower mudguard section - it you look closely the run and drip marks are still apparent.
Its also suffered a bit over the years, it would seem its not entirely scratch resistant.
You can tell its 1949 by the regulator piggybacked onto it - in later years it was inside the toolbox....



I'd further comment that Nortons stove enamel of this era generally wasn't too robust, you don't often see 'original paint' bikes,
the enamel seems to weather off rather well...

BritBikes seems rather flakey today, have to try everything 3 times...

I'm glad the originals showed run and drip marks as that is exactly how my brush-applied coach enamel turns out unless I'm super-careful.

I can now point out to rivet counters that I've replicated the original finish!

Heh heh, I'll remember that line, I like it...

For the rivet counters, fork sliders on early dommies also came in a black gloss finish of stoved enamel.
Obviously these have seen better days, but I keep them as samples.
You don't often see them restored like that...
Quite when this ended is an interesting question, 50s bikes are all polished alloy sliders ??