Here's the gauge panel I made for the Diamond T. It's 20 ga. stainless, a s**** I bought and rolled a bead around the perimeter with my buddys bead roller. I cut the holes with a cut off wheel in the die grinder, after trying the hole saw stuffed with an oil soaked sponge trick, and ruined 2 new hole saws. The cut off wheel worked just fine, and cheaper than ruining $30 worth of hole saws. I put an engine turned finish on with a 5/16 bolt chucked up in the drill press, with two layers of double sided trim tape, cut to fit the bolt head, and a pad of 320 gr. DA paper. Just eyeballed the pattern, it's pretty straight, considering. Gauges are SW "Wings" series, I think they're perfect in the dash. The big open area in the center will get the headlight switch, something else to balance it out, maybe a fog lamp or cargo lamp switch, starter ****on, and the ign. switch. There will also be turn signal indicators and a high beam indicator, the layout to be determined after I get the switches. I may make two little trim plates for either side, DT Deluxe cabs had these, and I'm going for the Hot Rod Deluxe look. Don't bother telling me how awful that column and steering wheel look, I already know that, and they are disappearing, the original Diamond T wheel and column to go back in.
That thing is huge!! Looks very cool, and I think you may have inspired me to engine turn something....
That's what she said... Actually, I just copied the DT Deluxe gauge panel. That's how big they were. I had to radius the corners, as I can't roll a bead that way, but it looks good to me. Brian
I think it looks great. Inspiring for those of us that have desk jobs. How many hours do you have into it? Did you start in the middle and work your way out? Anything you would have done different, recommendations? (other than the hole saws)
How many hours? Hmm, lets see... It took no time at all to cut out the piece of stainless, again using the cut off wheel. Rolling the bead was about 5 minutes worth of time at my buddies shop, and an hour of keeping him from getting anything done. I spent this afternoon t******* the panel to the bead, making a trip to the hardware store to get the right size hole saw, which of course I immediatly ruined. After I finally got the holes cut out, I had a little clean up to with a file, but only a few minutes. Doing the machined finish took maybe an hour. I actually find it relaxing, although some people would no doubt find it tedious. I did the pattern from the top edge down. By 5 oclock I had the panel in the trucks dash. It has to come out again of course when I wire it, but I have to mount the switches, indicator lights, paint the dash etc. etc. So, maybe 4 hours of actually working on it. Not to bad a way to spend an afternoon in a blizzard. I wanted to go to the AutoRama in Detroit, but glad I didn't now.
That panel is nice, I never thought about using a bead roller to make the surround, that was what I was having trouble with trying to figure out what to use for the edging.............it looks great. This is what I wound up using for my 35 Ford Pick Up, its .250 aluminum with some bendable aluminum channel, I may have to go back to the drawing board.
Awesome job! and as stated before, This is what hot rodding is all about. Wish I knew someone with a bead roller, looks real nice!
I don't think the edging looks bad at all. Your panel would be easy with to roll a bead around tho, much bigger radius corners than I needed. I'm not entirely satisfied with the big lazy corners I had to make. It may get re-done, I have lots of that stainless left...
Brian, Always interesting stuff your sharing. Seems like by the time I work through a single problem, you usually produce an entire car! Could you share how you set up the drill press for the engine turning? I read your description, but perhaps something is simply missing in translation for me. Thanks!
Set up? LOL, I just turned it on and started making little swirly spots! Seriously, I just eyeballed the pattern as I went. If you look closely, the rows "wander" a little. I guess I have a wandering eye...
I gave it a crack on a Fender Tele which I'd made an Al scratchplate for( it's a 97 California series) , I used a wire brush in a drill press, which I cleaned up on a bench grinder first....toyed with the idea of a fence , tried it.....then went free hand... For those looking closely they will notice that the striping is stickers. Yes, I found them, stuck em on to see what it looked like and this week I'm chasing down the man who did some work on our tank to put some work on the guitar..... I fretted(?) over it and then in what I recognize as "my way" just went "f*** it , how bad can it be....it took about ten minutes, did it by eye....with less pressure than I used on the test piece.....
The freehand patterns always look the best (as long as they're not too wobbly) because they have more "life" to them than the machine made sheets of engine turned S/S.
Brian, did your buddy have a motorized bead roller, I don't think the ones I have available to me would do stainless that deep, I sure like that look, I love the old Steward Warner 5-gauge panels, I'll have to get a piece of stainless and give it a try.
i love it! did the same thing for my kids rambler dash face then put 2 coats of candy blue over the top of it. looks ***s.
After seeing your thread Brian, I went looking for a bead roller. I found some info that HF sold them (cheap) $89.00 bucks but guess they discontinued. Oh well, back to hand forming I guess. That really takes time when a bead roller is so simple. Want to be my neighbor? My garage fridge always has Budweiser in it!
hf has a new bead roller ,it comes with a few sets of dies and costs more. other than that i think the main machine is the same.i think the new price is 149.00
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