One of the many spiffy features of Studebaker's first generation postwar cars, is blacklight illuminated instruments, and I believe they may have made mention of this being derived from WW2 aircraft in some of the sales brochures. From what I've read and observed, this is only partially true... most of the aircraft instruments either used radium paint, which allowed gauge faces and dials to glow continuously for a number of years, even in the absence of light; or small cold cathode fluorescent tubes in the cockpit to make UV sensitive paint glow (something like a blacklight poster). This setup stopped glowing immediately when light was extinguished. ...Studebaker used standard incandescent dash light bulbs shining through a dark purple filter to accomplish the latter effect. Ford also employed this method in 1949 and 1950, reverting to regular old direct illumination for '51.
The problem is that the paint degrades and no longer fluoresces after 70 years, and I'm guessing that it may have been pretty dead on a lot of cars by their 20th birthday. It's pretty common to hear gripes about unreadable instruments at night from owners of these cars, as well as shot-in-the-dark attempts to get useable dash lights again... from brighter bulbs and LED's, to pulling off the purple filters and tossing them in the garbage.
So, here's the questions: Has anyone experienced these instrument panels back when the numbers still glowed? What color did they light up? Was the radio dial also illuminated in the same fashion? Has anyone restored gauge faces back to this original configuration? I have played around with and used this type of lighting for a few projects, and think it has relevance beyond novelty applications... specifically remember an alarm clock that was blacklight illuminated; it lit up brightly and was very readable, and I didn't have to throw a towel over it to keep it from spraying stray light on the walls and ceiling.
The problem is that the paint degrades and no longer fluoresces after 70 years, and I'm guessing that it may have been pretty dead on a lot of cars by their 20th birthday. It's pretty common to hear gripes about unreadable instruments at night from owners of these cars, as well as shot-in-the-dark attempts to get useable dash lights again... from brighter bulbs and LED's, to pulling off the purple filters and tossing them in the garbage.
So, here's the questions: Has anyone experienced these instrument panels back when the numbers still glowed? What color did they light up? Was the radio dial also illuminated in the same fashion? Has anyone restored gauge faces back to this original configuration? I have played around with and used this type of lighting for a few projects, and think it has relevance beyond novelty applications... specifically remember an alarm clock that was blacklight illuminated; it lit up brightly and was very readable, and I didn't have to throw a towel over it to keep it from spraying stray light on the walls and ceiling.
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