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

Speed On , did a amazing job for me , great guy very talented !!! Thank You , Jack

 

@putz Thank you for your very kind words, Jack. I'm glad I was able to turn some dash panels for you. I hope you and your father are well. Hopefully we can bump into one another at a show before the end of the hot rod season.

@fleetside66 I was surprised at how well the copper took the Cratex. With that, the Cratex only had to contact the copper for a fraction of a second to create a great swirl. It was far easier to turn than I had anticipated.

 

Sorry to post another photo of this, but I finished the copper dash today. I just had to share. And YES, copper should definitely be engine turned!!!!

It's a copper kind of sunset......

 

All I can say is Wow ! That looks Awesome !!! beautiful work !!

 

Thank you so much @Martino I greatly appreciate your kind words.

 

Awesome thread! Here's the firewall on my old T, I used cratex and did it in metal shop class..
I also made a gauge panel.

 

Neat copper insert! Did you apply varnish or clear coat the copper? Would shark hide work? How to keep it from tarnishing...? Thanks

 

Not mine. But I spent a couple hours staring at these tables at the local laundromat the other night, now thinking maybe I want something like this for my garage.

 

Be interesting to talk to store owner, track down shop that made tables ( including legs ) just for conversation & helpful hints to do yours

 

Bar counter tops!

 

Bit hard to see on that pic, but I did it - old school - by hand with a coin behind a red scotch pad.

 

Nicely done sir!

 

Alllright, so I was back at it agian today. I've been meaning to the do this for years as I've always liked the look of vintage hand fuel pumps mounted with 1950's era Stewart Warner gauges. I've spent several years looking for a 2 hole panel that has a hole to fit a 2 5/8" gauge and a hole to fit an 1 1/2" pump. As you can imagine, they pretty much don't exist. so today I made my own!

This was my afternoon project. The aluminum was not ready to engine-turn once I finished the fabrication so I spent some time buffing it on my buffing wheel. Once I had it shining like crazy it was ready. Note, this aluminum was somewhat soft. I used a Medium Grit stick and only allowed the Cratex to come into contact for about 1 second for each swirl. I'm pretty happy with the results.

 

I made an engine-turned overhead dash plate for the three gauges on my '29 AA that I wanted front and center: the engine and transmission temperature (2-1/16") and the tachometer (3-3/8"). I started out with a 4-inch wide piece of 18-gauge stainless steel (short piece for illustrative purposes). The dash plate would be 4 inches tall and about 12 inches wide. I used a half-inch Cratex cylinder to carefully engine turn the face, then measured and spaced the pilot holes for the three instrument holes. Next I used carbide-tipped hole saws (bi-metal won't cut it, especially on the larger 3-3/8" hole) to accommodate the gauges I wanted. I needed to ensure the edges of the faceplate were tight to the underlying 18-gauge cold-rolled sheet metal overhead console so I measured and drilled 14 holes for 8-32 x 1/2" Allen head button bolts - nice black ones to contrast the engine turned faceplate. Finally, I attached the faceplate to the sheetmetal console, installed a couple of gauges to check fitment, put the whole thing in place above the AA windshield and confirmed the line of sight visibility. I'll add some green jewel-type turn signal indicator lights on each side of the tachometer. Not bad for just using a cutoff wheel, drill press and a couple of hole saws. I still get to keep the stock 28-29 Model AA dash, which will have the fuel gauge, oil pressure gauge, voltmeter and original speedometer/odometer/trip meter.
Sorry about not getting the photos in order. Still trying to figure out how to post stuff.
View attachment 5781852

 

Very cool. Nice work, looks sharp

 

So today I took the time to create a short video as I engine turned another panel. As you can see, the time that the Cratex stick is in contact with the piece you're engine turning is brief. If you allow the sanding stick to remain in contact too long you'll have swirls that take on a dark "burnt" look, which you do not want.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5JqIMdP_vV/?igsh=djJvZzBmZXptNTN2

 

Dumb questions of the year?

Can you chrome engine turned panels? Or use some other sort of treatment to harden the finish?

I’m asking because I never realized how little pressure is required to make the pattern and it would seem that after awhile the pattern might be diminished with repeated cleaning / hand polishing. Or not?

 

I messed up a piece and had to sand out and re-polish the aluminum part I was playing with. It is harder than you think.

 

1940 Buicks had dash panels that were steel engine turned and clear coated. You can engine turn brass and flash chrome over it. If it is a steel part have it copper plated before engine turning and flash the chrome.

 

I’m pretty sure you’d lose a lot of the swirl if you tried to chrome it.

The pattern is pretty durable. It’s scratched in to the surface by abrasive and really visible because you start with a shiny polished surface. Cleaning it won’t damage it.

The light pressure on the Cratex is important. You don’t want to generate any heat. Heat melts the Cratex and you get burnt end of Cratex stuck in your scratches.

Somewhere up-thread I posted pictures of a table in a local laundromat. The aluminum surface is turned, and you can imagine the abuse it takes from baskets and stuff being slid over it all day every day.

Also, I’ve “cleaned off” some failed turning to try again. It takes a while to do, even with an angle grinder.

 

I turned the shifter plate to match the dash in my roadster a couple of weeks ago.

It is easier to take care of as it doesn't show fingerprints and light scratches.

 

This panel on my truck was a pain to keep clean and scratched every time I used polish on it. So...

 

Chrome is approximately 5 millionths of an inch thick. Everything shows thru it. Not nickel, not copper, just chrome.

 

Agree with copper

 

A bit of crc , sand blasting sand , rubber grommet in some tube and some planning and time. I found that less sand worked better. Turned a boring wood English $15 dash into a 32 ford dash. Total cost $23 including dash. The only problem was I couldn’t see another way to attach the dash to the surround without using two small visible SS button head cap screws.