Tech - Gauge Face Customization/Restoration

Old gauges are cool. New gauges suck.

Most old gauges work fine, they just need a little facelift.

The stock gauges for my 49 GMC were pretty worn and faded. I wanted to at least reface them, but the reface kits were only for stock Chevy(Black)/GMC(Brown) colors, and didn’t include the middle labels. I wanted something a little different, so I figured that I could get the results that I wanted using custom printed waterslide decals.

The stock gauges.

 

So here’s the plan.

1. Disassemble.

2. Paint the housings white.

3. Paint the gauge faces ivory.

4. Create new lettering with waterslide decals.

5. Install new faces

6. Reassemble.

 

Starting disassembly.



Painting the housings was no big deal, blasted them, shot them with white.

I lightly sanded the gauge faces, and hit them with ivory.

 

Next, the time consuming part… creating the lettering.

I bought the decal paper from Ebay, it usually runs about a buck a sheet, and is called “Clear Inkjet Waterslide Transfer Decal Paper”. I bought ten sheets, but only used three.

To design the lettering, I used CorelDraw, but you could use just about any drawing package, or even Powerpoint. I wanted a cool font, so I browsed 1001freefonts.com and downloaded one called burgerdoodle.

After MANY hours of design, printing, and test fitting, this is what I came up with.




The sky is the limit in designing the gauge faces, I wish that I had done something a little more radical, the more artful among us could really come up with some cool stuff.

After printing, the directions instruct you to spray the paper with a couple of coats of clear, and let dry. Then you can cut out each group of letters, place in water a few seconds, and transfer to your gauges.

 

Cool so far. Waiting on more pics.

 

Here's the gauges with the decals applied.



Cool.

Then I hit the needles with a little one shot red.

 

I hit the middle of the housing with some one shot black, and reassembled the gauges in their housing. Mmmmmm, looking nice.

 

The gauge cluster is done, now for the speedo.


Same deal… print the waterslide, hit with clear, soak in water, transfer to the speedo face.

Then reinstall the face into the speedometer.

 

I’m super pleased with how they turned out.

 

So, there you have it.

For about 20 bucks ($10 for rattle cans, $10 for waterslide decal paper) and a bunch of computer time, you can TOTALLY transform your stock gauges.

 

looks real good..

 

Nice job,
Like I always say, that's all there is to it. We use rub-downs instead of water slide when we can't screen right on the dial, but same theory, very well done.
Mark

 

That is awesome! I like the creative touch, its details like this that make a difference.

 

Looks great, how did you transfer the sizes of the gauges to the photo program or did you do test sheet of regular paper?

 

pretty crafty... well done

 

What kind of paint can be used so that the needles and or numbers glow when lights are on or isn't it important?

 

Nice work...Devil's in the details and you nailed it. Great pics, thanks.

 

Hotdamn that's nice

 

That is a great tech and simple.

 

Those gauges look great Rich!

Are you just running a voltage drop on the 6V gauges? I'd also be curious about how you determined the size of the font/shape of the gauge face in CorelDraw.

...& how does the odometer keep changing mileage?

JH

 

Jesus...........how simple is that?! And beautiful to boot!

 

amazing work!

 

That's pretty impressive.

Model Master Flourescent Red is what I used on a 68 Roadrunner needle and it looks like the original bright orange. I don't think it glows in the dark though!

 

Very nice! And very creative! I plan to do something similar to my older gauges..

 

Pretty clever. Didn't know ya had it in you, Rich

Now I'm gonna rain on your parade.

Aren't you worried about the red printer ink fading? (bear with me...)
I did a waterslide a few years ago on my louvered truck. Mostly red ink, some black(it was a HAMB knock-off of the SCTA logo) Slid it right onto the back window with pride Less than two months later, the red was about gone, and what was left was little more than pink.

Just saying........

 

Will the gauges see as much UV rays as the window? I think he'll be allright.

 

Really great job Rich.
I think you should charge yourself about $600.00

 

That turned out great. Thanks for sharing.

 

Looks great! Gives me ideas for the gauges in the dash of my Stude.

One thing I'm curious about- the new speedo face. Original went from 0-80, new face is 0-100 in what looks like roughly the same area. Did you recilbrate, or are you just not concerned with an accurate reading?