Tweet
1947 Speedometer - Original or not
Dear all!
Somehow shy knowing that there are some many experts around here, I will try with much hesitation to post a technical issue as a new member of the AMCA! Therefore please practice some patience with me before smashing my skull with a 32E generator!
My name is Chris and I am living in Tokyo now... I have a 47F, a 48FL with 48LE and a 70FLH as stock as my brain and budget allows... I am 41 years old but I bought my first (devastated) Panhead when I was 15... An honor and happy to be among you!
Exactly talking about brain and coming to the point, I bought recently through eBay (yes, eBay - please apologize but from Japan this might be the only way to get parts for restoration) a SW speedometer for my 47F to a seller well known to most of you in this field.
The seller advertised it to be an "original and unrestored" speedo which, even paying the respectable amount of USD 1000, I was very glad to do so since was the last part missing in my stock 47F (the old speedo was an olive drab 1946).
When I got the speedo in my hands, I was satisfied with the appearance of the well known center eye fading in grey tones which often features bad reproductions. The dot array was very nice. But excessive irregularities in the lines of mainly in the bar and shield logo, pushed me to continue investigation...
The result was that unfortunately I was caught with a reproduction face... And I was willing to share with you my experience with the hope that somebody featuring limited experience as I do, could have a better luck than mine!
Summary:
a) Original 47 Stewart Warner speedometers have lithographied faces which causes very clean and knife-cut edges in numbers, logo, lines and circles.
b) Reproduction of these faces are done sometimes by silk screening which causes at naked eye visible staggered edges everywhere.
My English is painful therefore I added some pictures for better understanding! My speedo is the "repro face X" ones (unfortunately) and the good one is the others...
Any feed-back and/or correction will be much appreciated!
Kindest regards to all from Japan!
Chris.
Somehow shy knowing that there are some many experts around here, I will try with much hesitation to post a technical issue as a new member of the AMCA! Therefore please practice some patience with me before smashing my skull with a 32E generator!
My name is Chris and I am living in Tokyo now... I have a 47F, a 48FL with 48LE and a 70FLH as stock as my brain and budget allows... I am 41 years old but I bought my first (devastated) Panhead when I was 15... An honor and happy to be among you!
Exactly talking about brain and coming to the point, I bought recently through eBay (yes, eBay - please apologize but from Japan this might be the only way to get parts for restoration) a SW speedometer for my 47F to a seller well known to most of you in this field.
The seller advertised it to be an "original and unrestored" speedo which, even paying the respectable amount of USD 1000, I was very glad to do so since was the last part missing in my stock 47F (the old speedo was an olive drab 1946).
When I got the speedo in my hands, I was satisfied with the appearance of the well known center eye fading in grey tones which often features bad reproductions. The dot array was very nice. But excessive irregularities in the lines of mainly in the bar and shield logo, pushed me to continue investigation...
The result was that unfortunately I was caught with a reproduction face... And I was willing to share with you my experience with the hope that somebody featuring limited experience as I do, could have a better luck than mine!
Summary:
a) Original 47 Stewart Warner speedometers have lithographied faces which causes very clean and knife-cut edges in numbers, logo, lines and circles.
b) Reproduction of these faces are done sometimes by silk screening which causes at naked eye visible staggered edges everywhere.
My English is painful therefore I added some pictures for better understanding! My speedo is the "repro face X" ones (unfortunately) and the good one is the others...
Any feed-back and/or correction will be much appreciated!
Kindest regards to all from Japan!
Chris.
Comment