Vintage Sign Base FINALLY Painted

I finally finished painting the vintage Sun Oil Company sign base turned umbrella base.  The blue color was easy but the yellow was so tedious and stressful to paint.  The slower I painted, to try and keep a straight edge, the more it became wavy.  I don't see me pin stripping anything in the near future.

We had a difficult time finding the right shade of yellow enamel for the lettering.  Model car paint was exactly the right amount of paint needed, so off to Michaels we went to look at their color selection.  At our age (don't ask me my age...LOL) I should have known better than to leave the house without my readers.  Small bottle=extra small label=teeny tiny print.  Seriously, I still cannot say for sure what the name of this paint color is but I did find the words Fl. Yellow.  Fl????

The lettering on the base is raised so there are two ways to paint the lettering.  I could paint the entire raised letter OR just the very top of the raised letter.  I started out painting the entire raised part on the letters OIL.  Right away I did not like the look that came from painting the entire raised portion.

But in an attempt to keep an open mind I painted the word SUN and just painted the very top of the raised.  I knew right away that that was the way to go.  It looked more dimensional and neater. Painting the entire raised portion was difficult because of the roughness of the cast iron.  The more I tried to get an even edge, the fatter the letter became.  So I resprayed the word OIL, with navy blue, and then repainted just the very top of the letter.  The letters required two coats of yellow or should I say Fl. Yellow.  Ahhhhhh....much better.  Someone should repaint that picnic table.

Here is a photo of the base with the newly painted umbrella.  I spray painted the pole and the top finial ball with Rustoleum black in a satin finish.

I love that we can now use and enjoy this vintage piece of history.

I'll post better photos tomorrow.  I took these last two late in the afternoon when the sun was behind the trees.