Art & Inspiration The History and Art of Engine Turned Material - Lets See Yours

My Aristocrat dash panel for my model A


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If you look at a photo of a Vintage Bugatti engine the aluminum crankcase is "Hand Scraped", I was told it helped cover the pours aluminum and keep oil from weeping out. Here is a good link to the history of the process. Bob


http://www.circuitousroot.com/artifice/machine-shop/surface-finishing/hand-scraping/index.html

 

I love the look of engine turning and the appearance of a vintage Bugatti engine compartment is beautiful. I needed to make a false firewall for my Healey and don't have the skills or tooling to do the work myself. I did find a company that produces sheet metal and dashes already turned. http://www.fpmmetals.com/ I know it's a cheat, but it met my needs:

 

This panel was made from 1/8" stainless, lot of time at the drill press.

 

The car is a bit off topic but I added a turned panel to the dash of my ISO Rivolta to give it more of a hot rod feel. I have since re done the gauges and re wired the whole thing.

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Here is the gauge panel for the sedan. Used a piece of 1/4" aluminum.

 

I love this look on almost all panels done this way. Here is a shot of my dash panel.

 

Stainless steel firewall in my 54 stude

 

I didn't do the engine turning, but I like it.
I know it's not the "I did it" way, but you could buy panels to work with that are already turned. I assume you still can.

 

Hey LBCD,

That is very impressive, a very tough job for you. I have also noticed that in public places people tend to lean or grab walls, dividers, corners for support. Even at home, some corners get more action than others. There is also a move to get away from drywall and paint to the more artistic, but easy maintenance walls or dividers to these metal forms of art.

Not only do they look so much better, but the cost savings in the long run, without having to replace drywall and paint yearly, is a savings for the public. Stay safe…

Our car versions started with small sections of chrome accessories and since we did not have a drill press or such to make accurate swirls, our cars had the hand swirled custom look. As neat and orderly as possible, in nice rows, but when placed next to machined swirled ones, it was noticeable. Did we care? Not so much, as we did the work ourselves.

With a little super, fine grain sand paper, making the paper somewhat flexible and with our index finger, we made swirls on metal. Once we got wet/dry sand paper, it was easier. As long as we had set out a pattern or direction of the swirls, it looked uniform. We practiced on small bits of aircraft aluminum purchased from the scrap yard at Douglas Aircraft on Carson St.

Small things were done first and if that looked good, then a larger dash plates, etc. No one tried a firewall, had the patience or wanted to wreck a Moon Tank, so it was usually dash plates, instrument surrounds, door panels and interior pieces. Quite a few shiny swirls made it to the small aircraft, aluminum plates for grades in the metal shop class.

Jnaki

We are in a remodeling/decorating stage with a sculpture coming down off of a big wall. I showed my wife the machine turned, swirled, metal designs as a replacement and she said maybe. So, there is a local, metal working place that does custom work for the whole industry, including cars, restaurants, table tops, and advertising designs. Maybe, just maybe…

At home, a swirled metal wall would look very cool, indeed…But, so far, we have settled for some simple aluminum frames for a wall display, for now. That is as close to swirled metal in the house as it gets. It all has to be approved by the rabid, in-home designer.

If someone wanted to get real fancy, there are now metal garage cabinets that could get this shiny, custom look with a few hours of design and work.

 

1955 Studebaker Speedster had an engine turned dash with nice, simple gauges. Some claimed it was engine turned stainless.
https://i2.wp.com/macsmotorcitygara...aker-President-Speedster-dash.jpg?w=600&ssl=1
http://www.wcrosby.com/studebaker/dash2.gif

Hawks 1956 to 1961 got a similar treatment.

By 1961 it was described as engine turned aluminum.
http://raylinrestoration.com/Stuff/61Stuff/1961RT.htm

 

Hello,

I (also) still have ideas of turning this aluminum art frame into a swirled design machine look. But, if I started one, I would have to do all 6 of these, edge to edge, on a blank wall with photos or ???? It is not like it can be done instantly, so… Practice, practice, practice…motto of the day!

Jnaki

First I will have to take car machined turned photos, super impose them and see how it looks. It is the perfect platform and it would look rather cool. On the other hand, the other half may not go for altering these nice metal frames.

 

Always liked the engine turned dash inserts, has anyone had any luck finding the vinyl type often used by truckers/ track cars for lettering/numbers etc. ? checked several local & on line vendors searching a for 1/2" dia. something as close as possible to the 32 Ford dash insert size swirl.

 

Check on Amazon, I ordered some for numbers on our minibikes. It was pretty cheap too.

 

good post love the look. But no one has answered the question about allignment. don't you have to kind some set measured pattern to look good. That hood job is unreal. What sealer finish on it. Any pictures of hand/finger done jobs?

 

AmishMike,
Did you watch my video in post #1? I describe how you should line up your second (and subsequent rows) of swirls.
Simply split the difference of the 2 swirls above the swirl you're making. You want to ensure you're covering your piece of material with swirls and not leaving gaps anywhere (you dont want any area without swirl marks)
Please excuse my crude rendering below, but you get the idea.
Lay your first row:


Then your next row by off setting the swirls from the top enursing full coverage.


I'm no expert in this, but this is the genreally accepted way to get nice uinform swirls.

Also, use the jig or adjustor on your drill press (most come with them) to help give you straight passes ( watch my video for further explanation).

This piece here was my first attempt at engine turning and I think it turned out pretty nice. I would only allow the Cratex to touch your material for 1 second as that is plenty of time to leave a nice swirl. In my video I let the Cratex touch my steel for about 2 seconds, that's a little overkill, I was still learning.


Sealer/ finish:
When I finished my piece I whiped it down with laquer thinner as it had a lot of sanding dust on it. Then I sprayed it with Gibbs spray. It gave it a nice sheen; you could use WD40 and get the same results. Or, you could just leave it. I have bare steel pieces in my garage I sanded years ago and they look as bright and brilliant as the day I sanded them.

 

Keep in mind I used common mild steel as I just had this scrap piece laying around in my materials bin. I just wanted to try engine turning so I didn't use expensive material. I am however very pleased with the results/look.

With that being said, I would recommend using stainless steel or maybe aluminum if you're going to make a dash panel, gauge mount or other decorative piece.

Hope I was of some assistance. I'm very new to this as well.

 

Here is a Seleen DOHC head cam box and up-draft intake manifold on a 261 Chev with "flowering" or "flaking" done with a hand scraper.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Very Nice! The brass plugs give it even more of a Bugatti look. Bob

 

sorry - found this post at lunch & glanced through without watching video. Put it on "watch list" to see video tonight. Thanks again for GREAT post

 

Dash I made for a 97 chevy pickup.

 

Engine turning seems like a good idea and is for small pieces. LOL

I turned the hood and deck lid of this P1800 after making them in aluminum. Last pic shows layout which I has to do by hand due to the compound curvature of the panels.

I used a scotchbrite pad and home made arbor inside a piece of exhaust tube and lubricated it witb water in case I decided to clear it after. The decision was made to not clear it and allow it to fade naturally.

There was about 8-10 hrs of layout and turning on the deck lid and 12-14hrs on the hood.

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I had a decal and this ornament laying around so I made a mount/display. I ran my swirl lines in the same direction as the devil. I'm more of a church going guy so it will make a good gift for a friend. He's in to bikes and he's pretty wild.

 

My Model A dash

 

My 34 roadster. Holds G/BFR and G/BGR records at Bonneville.

 

old engine turning on my 33 Plymouth gauges.I made a separate gauge panel that I tried engine turning with a chunk of round cratex.Didn't work to well as I already had the holes cut and it seemed to rip up the cratex when I tried to cut on a partial hole.Back to the drawing board on that one.

 

pic shows the small under dash gauge panel I made to add a small oil pressure and water temp gauge that's not included in the large panel.My sample piece turned out pretty good but when I tried to do the the panel with the holes it just tore up the cratex and looked pretty bad.Thinking I may need to plug the holes and try it again.Any other advice ?

 

Great thread Speed On. Thanks for sharing your technique. I've been tinkering around trying different ways and getting nowhere. Thanks again.

 

Some inspiration for your engine turning dreams.

 

It can actually be traced back to horse drawn fire engines. Way before WWI aircraft. Originally it was done in the gold leaf work on old fire engines (so called for the pump not because they had an engine) and was done with a piece of velvet and a wood dowel.

The name comes from the fact that it was done on fire engines.

There is a material that we use on stainless and aluminum called *creat stick. But I have turned aluminum with a hard wood dowel before with good success.

I don't have any pics to offer sorry.

*I always get that name wrong. and hopefully someone will correct me.