I want to make some turned metal gauge panels and other pieces for my car but I am having trouble sourcing machine turned stock or appliques. Does anyone know of a good source?
there's a tech on how to make your own, check the tech archives and use the search function above... Good stuff!!
Here's one commercial source. I have seen the applique stuff, but who wants contact paper in their hotrod? http://www.fpmmetals.com/auto price list.htm
Looks like an interesting site for abrasives, but not finished materials and they won't give you a price list without your e-mail/address. Homey don't play that.
All you need is a drill press and either a micro Roloc with medium scotch brite pads or sanding drums. You could just buy this kit from eastwood- http://www.eastwood.com/ew-engine-turning-kit-1-2in-diameter.html
I know you want the turned metal look but my dad is a cnc machinest with his own cnc mill in his garage. He would maybe beable to help you design your own look. He does some really good work. His website is JP5Performance.com. Feel free to check it out and maybe even shoot him an email and ask him if he can help you out. Tim
I do these myself on a drill press with a scotchbrite pad on a 1/4" mandrel. Just move the panel over about 3/4 of the width of the first swirl, and repeat. Start the next row in between two swirls and don't get too caught up in trying to get it perfect. Once the panel is done, it is almost impossible to see any inconsistencies.
Screw buying stuff, all you need is a piece of dowel and some grinding/polishing compound, works great. Chuck it up in a drill press and go, that's what i did, and it worked great
FPM is located 20 miles from me in Fairbury NE. and do a very good job of making custom panels or supplying turned flat sheets in various sized circles. They have made me 2 turned panels for my gennie Auburn dashs and 2 for my early Caddy dashs. They do both aluminum and SS. All very high quality
My dad saw this earlier this morning and told me about it . This is a pic of a firewall on a 47 ford i did using a drill press and a scotch brite pad. the material is aluminum,you can use stainless as well and it comes out pretty nice. if you clear over it then wet sand and polish it it looks killer!!! The second set of pics wer panels i made for a 41 i'm working on now. if you like them i can do a set for you just give me a template of what you need.. Mark
Mark, that's quite nice. Can you tell us how long it took you and where/what you got for the aluminum sheet?
Page 33 of the Speedway catalog has the engine turned panels 6" wide and up to 48" long for $139.99. .063 thick Aluminum with 1/2" circles.
a full 4x10 sheet of 3003 .063 Aluminum only runs about 60 bucks right now. a sheet, some scotch brite pads, and a little bit of time and youll have something you handmade instead
I did my own. I used a piece of 1/2" wooden dowel, and some cutting oil. I did it on Bridgeport, and moved the part over a 1/2" at a time. Here's a bad picture of the column drop, the switch panel is done too.
Hey 5window thank's for the kind word's! I bought the sheet from a local steel yard a large sheet of it is much cheaper than going out and buying something that is "manufactured" and limits you to what you can make.... That being said it didn't take that long to do the pieces we made a GRID on Dad's CAD program (1x1) squares and transferred it to a board using a straight edge move your panel to each line and have at it.. The pic of the under dash (gold dash) was a 3" piece and i had it bent to my specs and did all my trimming,holes and so forth...... here's some pic's of the board Mark
Just thought of this and forgot to put this in .. in the first dash pic (black one) the under dash panel is 2x2 angle by 1/8 thick a little much for mounting switch's so i opted to go with 18 gauge easier to work with. also note that yous Grid size will change depending on what size your disk is, for instance the first car was 1 inch and the second was 1/2 inch if their is anything else i can help with let me know Mark
Hey ya can do it yourself! I just completed, couple months back, a turned aluminum panel for out '32 roadster. Full size insert with five gauges. Used the drill press and a stick of 3/4" Craytex and lubed each pass with WD40. Made an arbor from a plastic pipe fitting. One end took the Craytex stick and the other went in the drillpress. Turned out great! I experimented with brass wire end brush, steel wire end brush, scotchbrite style rolox pad, etc. Found a couple good threads on here that got us started.
That under-dash panel is similar to what I need. Need to fab a a 2 gauge panel for mounting oil and temp gauges, 2/5/8" gauge openings. Also a seperate tach panel for dash mounting or perhaps mounting to the steering wheel column.
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