i picked up this Williams Masterpiece J3a Hudson a while back. I hadn't noticed when I won it that someone had added class lights to the smokebox. Not only were they not prototypical but they used large lamps along with oversize wire and made huge holes.
Repair was made by wire brushing the paint away around the holes top and bottom. Then pieces of copper tape were soldered to the underside and common 63-37 solder melted into the holes, pretty much all done with my home brew resistance soldering tools. The solder was filed then sanded as smooth as possible using my smallest files and thin strips of sandpaper trying not to remove the rivet detail, only partially successful as it turned out.
After brushing on a few coats of automotive primer it was sanded again. Finally the damaged area was sprayed with a color I had mixed up for another project. No idea if it would match but it seems close enough. I wanted to avoid masking off all the piping and repainting the whole smokebox.
Here are some pics, before, during and after.
Pete
