Wood graining

From looking at a few unrestored cars, I have serious doubts that Henry's boys used a roller with a pattern on it. No two, that I've seen, appear alike that much. Also the grain appears quite deep on one I just looked at that has 15K original miles. I suspect like the striping, it was good brush work. I still wonder what materials and the application technique. (In the Model A era.)
 
Yea, they used a roller and etched plate with a brush to touch up on the later models, the early models used a brush.
 
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Apparently some early 1930 cars were hand applied
 

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Most if not all of the wood graining would have been done by Briggs, Murray and other body builders because they built the deluxe bodies complete with interiors and ready to drop onto chassis at Ford plants.

Unfortunately these companies did not keep great records as did the Ford Motor Company.

Wood graining was most likely manually done using a plate and roller process. The plate had the impression of the wood grain. The paint media was spread across the plate and transferred to a roller. The roller was used to transfer the wood grain to the window moldings, etc.
 
I was told the old original factory assembly line guys used Cheesecloth with the ink and dragged it the length of the part being grained.and they were fast doing one after the other. right or wrong ? I don't know . but I do know it works and finished product looks similar to the original pattern.
 
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