fabbing instrument panel from brass

While I owned a boneyard i saved br*** door scuff plates from the junk.I want to do an instrument panel that will be plated and thought this br*** would be easy to work with and get chromed. Any pitfalls to be aware of?

 

I just finished a br*** dash insert for my roadster. We engine-turned it and then shot clear over it. Looks great. Make sure you seal it some way.
r

 

I made some piecses out of br*** plate that was chrome plated. Found it in the junk. I actually think it was a mirror for a restroom. I thought it was shined stainless until I cut it and found the br*** under the shinny silver.
So another source for cool ****, Industrial restroom mirrors

Frank

 

raven61 I would love to see a photo of that dash. I have thought about doing the same thing

 

Should be able to Chrome over Br*** no problem.Just spend the time
to polish the Br*** to perfection,or every little defect will show in the Chrome.

 

Here are some pics of Ravens' Dash....

P.S. R I found your pics that we have been looking for!!

 

Br*** scratches easy while you're working with it. Like if you use a hole saw to cut the holes for the gauges, you'll wind up with a bunch of s****es around the hole from the curly cues dragging around in circles. Br*** clogs up sandpaper fast too, so it takes longer to smooth it up.

I made a dash insert for my '31 Plymouth out of 1/8" br*** plate and was thinking I was going to have it plated, but when I was getting close to a polished surface, I was using I think a 3M "surface conditioning disk" and it was leaving some pretty cool looking sparkly patterns, sort of like a variation on engine turning but looking more like tiger stripes. I made a bunch of vertical p***es overlapping on each p*** and I liked the look, so I sprayed it with clear acrylic and it's still looking pretty good about 8 years later. The br*** isn't quite as shiny as it used to be. Sorry, but I don't have a picture of it.

When I made my dash, I silver-soldered (silver-brazed) some bolts to the backside of it and used nuts from the backside to secure it to the dash -- that made it so I didn't have to have any visible fasteners on the front side. Silver solder sticks really well to br***, and it's pretty strong.

 

Raven...that dash is sooo, sooo, sooo ****in cool.

I really like it.

 

Raven......looking at the pics, and noticed a difference in the appearance of that insert. The surround for the smaller guages has a different look to it compared to the larger surround. It appears that you did a directional change in the overlap pattern, but I'm not sure.

Care to share the "secret", or is it just an optical delusion?

Roger

 

Looks like two pieces.

 

looks great..