I recently bought this K6 St Edwards Crown insert, which was in need of restoring back to its original shade of GPO red.
Nothing too difficult on this project; remove old paint, prime (rattlecan), three coats of red (rattlecan), and two coats of hand painted metallic gold over the crown. I used a new and unknown (to me) metallic paint on this, not one of the better metallics I have tried out (good metallics are hard to find) so it may well receive another coat, but the detail on the crown has come up quite well.
Background history:
In 1953 the new Queen Elizabeth II, decided to replace the K6 telephone kiosk 'Tudor' Crown with the 'St Edwards' Crown.
Originally K6 crowns had been cast into the top fascia of the K6 as one complete piece, but from 1955 the Post Office decided to also use a representation of the Crown of Scotland, so to accommodate the two different designs of crown on K6 Red Telephone Kiosks the top fascia sections were instead cast with a centre slot in them, into which a plate bearing the appropriate crown was inserted before the roof section was fitted.
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Photo 1 - insert plate as received; original GPO red overpainted with a grubby white emulsion.
Photo 2 - insert plate restored; GPO red, with gold crown.
Photo 3 - example of a one piece Tudor Crown top fascia (from my collection).
Photo 4 - side by side comparison example of 2x K6 kiosks in situ; St Edwards Crown (left), Tudor Crown (right).
Awesome job, that looks great! I love old cast pieces.
Although it not phone related, I have a Queen Victoria era cast Royal Canadian mailbox door with a crown on it.
Very nice Job FAB.