When Undercoating With Aluminum Paint Was The Thing
By Bryce Martin

Vehicles in the 1950s were highly susceptible to rust and corrosion because of the change from a separate chassis frame made from thick steel to a uni-body construction with shaped panels. The less thick steel and a different composition, together with ice-melting chemicals, mainly salt, led to rapid corrosion problems.

Orbie Martin jumped at the opportunity to solve the problem for car owners.

Undercoating, using aluminum paint. It was the new thing, the business to get into.

He bought a compressor, barrels of aluminum paint, hoses and sprayers, a paint hood, and went into business, operating at his residence and as a mobile unit.

I stopped by one day on a neighborhood walk and he was at work in front of his outbuilding. The large four-wheeled, towable compressor ran on either gasoline or diesel, I'm not sure which, and was noisy. A silvery mist spewed from underneath a car he was spraying. I watched for a spell from the edge of the road. Orbie rose from his stoop, quit spraying and stood up. He looked like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz.

The silvery paint stood out so well I could see a glimpse of the chassis. It was an area I would not have noticed otherwise. The paint might have helped with slowing or preventing of rust but it failed in overall eye appeal.

In a few weeks, Orbie's paint spraying equipment disappeared and he was involved with a hot, new profession inside his outbuilding: repairing televisions.

"He might be on to somethin'," my Grandfather said. "They make 'em to break so you'll have to buy their parts to fix 'em."
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