[jrblasde]

I’ve reached a dilemma. I got the new decals from Radio Daze for the knobs, and I got them installed. I applied a coat of the same clear gloss coating that I sprayed on the cabinet, but it was too shiny. The control panel was originally a bit more matte than the cabinet, I guess you’d say. Anyway, I followed up with a coat of semi-gloss to see how that would look, and I guess that was a poor choice. The two dissimilar lacquers reacted with each other and bubbled up.

I could salvage the piece of wood, but I would need to refinish it and order new decals. In the midst of my frustration, I had an idea. I took the control panel from the scrap radio and cleaned it up. It was nasty, but there wasn’t any damage to it! I did have to spray a bit of toner on spots to conceal a few faded areas, but it cleaned up well. I then put on a fresh coat of semi-gloss lacquer. 

It looks good, but here’s my conflict. These are the original decals on this panel; they look fine, but are clearly more faded than the new “PHILCO” decal on the cabinet. What do you all think—is it okay as is, or should I just go ahead and get another set of decals for the knobs? It’s not that big of an expense, but I’m not sure if it would be overkill if I have this panel shown here.