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When carrying out a restoration should the hardware i.e.
nuts and bolts etc be painted or left with a natural steel finish.
Hi, From a personal perspectve and as a choice I paint them if they are mild steel. I have seen lovely restorations spoilt by rusty nuts. But I Have assembled them with stainless steel fixings and left them unpainted. Mac Have a happy holiday
Thats torn it ! What primer do I need to paint the gold plated bits . MacG .
Most of my "old" nuts and bolts which had servicable threads along with most of the little bracket thingys and odd bits of metal were sent to the platers. There are two reasons for doing this .....
One. You dont have to clean them up because they are dipped in strong acid to remove rust and clean them before plating. This saves you loads of time.
Two. When zinc plated they look realy nice , without being too overdone and posh like chrome plated bits can be.
Once they are fitted they "age" realy nicely and I have found that after a winter in a damp garage all they need is a wipe with a dirty oily rag to give them a nice "old" look. NOTE: rag must be dirty to get right look.
Of course if you buy new high tensile BSF and BSW nuts and bolts from the well known supliers they are already zinc plated, but this is a very "blue" finish. when you take yours to the local platers you need them zinc passivated but with a slight yellow tone rather than blue, just ask the expert there.
P.S its also quite cheap and much much quicker than wire brushing and priming and painting which chips off anyway!
Of course you pays your money and takes your choice and we all have our own personal idea of what looks right!! 
Steve.
