TECH!!!! Engine Turning at home on a budget!!!!

I have been wanting to do aluminum, and wondered about the oxidization. How about clear coating it??

 

It'd certainly dull it out but it will still look good, try a piece and find out, you could even try an old beer can to see how it looks.....

 

Nice tech, I did mine in a similar way. I designed a grid to follow,and had the local print shop print it in color on heavy vinyl. With a straight edge clamped on each row, I could move the piece over and line up the corner of stainless on each "grount joint" so to speak. The color cordination between black and red helped me remember which row I was on. This way if you had a hole in your stainless, you could follow the grid on the vinyl and stay on course.

 

Anyone have a picture with this method on a piece of copper or brass??

 

I finally have a thread where I can say "Back in the day"!

Back in the day, we used steel wool on the end of the dowel, held on by a rubber band. The steel wool would stop spinning if you were pressing too hard, and helped to avoid gouging.

 

I turned an aluminum plate for the instrument panel in my '53 Chevy about 12 years ago, and sprayed a heavy coat of clear enamel on it immediately after it was done. It has not dulled or oxidized at all during that time, although the car is parked in a garage not outdoors.

I used scotchbrite (gray, I think?) hot-glued to the head of a bolt, lubed with WD-40. Worked great.

(Please ignore the street rod-ish console. It was my first attempt at a custom interior!)

 

TRY THIS!!

I found a ton of stuff on the net about engine turning. Played around with several approaches and used both end brushes and then tried Craytex. Used aluminum plate the full length of the dash. Tried several 3/4" end brushes - brass and steel. Zip tied the brush to keep the bristles together. Both worked well. I found a little WD40 enhances the look... Did another piece for the transmission cover and used one of the brushes.

Next we tried the Craytex approach. Picked up a 3/4" round Craytex stick just to see. It made softer and more subtle swirls than the brushes. Brushes tend to do well but for smaller patterns like a dash I thought maybe a softer pattern would be more pleasing.

Fashioned an arbor from a plastic pipe reducer from the hardware store that has threads on one end and a hose bib on the other. The threaded end is 3/4" ID and took a short piece of Craytex perfectly! Did a series of cuts in the threaded end and used a hose clamp to tighten down on the Craytex slug. Small end goes to the drill press.

Marked the edge of the work piece with a black Sharpie to line up with a similar mark on the wood "fence" clamped to the drill press. Set the drill press stop so you can get the same down pull on each stroke for a consistant pattern. I used WD40 the and stopped to clean the Craytex end with light sand paper about each 12" or so. Go slow and you can make a consistant pattern.




Here are the tools. Three 1" end brushes and the Craytex stick... And our high dollar arbor to hold the Craytex.



The 3/4" Craytex stick - kinda like a rubbery grit filled pencil eraser. Cut it with a hack saw...


These are the parts to our home made Craytex arbor. Plastic pipe reducer with slots cut, hose clamp and slug of Craytex.


Finished high tech tool...



Here is the thing in the drill press... Let the fun begin. Go slow and keep things aligned. Better save the beers for later.....



Sample turning - just a practice scrap! In my opinion, some imperfections are good - your engine turning looks REAL and not like some plastic or computer controlled mass produced panel....





Finished dash with five gauges mounted. She liked it!

AARRRGH! Problems sizing these pics! Used Windoze photo editor, and also resizing them on photobucket as well. No matter, the images are all huge when we copy the IMG code to share the photos. More detail is a good thing though right?

 

I did try it on something that stayed indoors, and it still looks pretty good five years later, but a dash in an open car is exposed to alot more sunlight and so on. But I think it will work.

That looks GREAT, and the red/black grid is a good idea.

Looks good.

 

Nice tech and fun too!

Not to take away from your method but I thought I'd add to the compilation of methods listed above.

Years ago, I fabricated a coffee shop drive through menu and made the back out of a large sheet of 22g 304SS. I acquired all the tools for the job from MSC Direct.

I gently daubed 120 grit Clover valve lapping compound on the sheet using a foam brush (so the sheet wouldn't get scratched). I used a 1" diameter Cratex brand medium grit silicon carbide rubberized abrasive mounted on a mandrel. When finished, I pressure washed the sheet of the spent abrasive (so that the sheet wouldn't get scratched when trying to wipe the compound off). The result was a very fine and bold swirl finish.

See picture of old picture below. Thanks! Joey

 

Great info!!! Can anyone tell me where to buy the craytex,cratex sticks please.Iam gonna try a curved piece and see what happens. Jim f

 

Excellent post thank you

 

GREAT STUFF

I dunno if the is method would work .. delete if ya want
but on items too large for hand held a method may work by ripping a 8 foot peg board sheet x 6 inch ? just off center of a row of the holes
then bolting together a vertical frame of more peg board(spacing 1x1)
using a cordless drill with a 1/4 arbor 1 1/4 polishing face placing in each succesive notch along the some what flexable board.. the moving up/ down along the vertical until the area has the effect..

spaceing 1x1
polish face 1 1/4
flexibilty of the notched board for curves and obstacles

this has been in my head for use on an Airstream trailer?

precise vertical spacing
working always the same direction on alterate rows
other possibilities staggering the next row by 1/2 inch

 

Enco has them

 

It could work but you really don't want to put the arbor through the holes in the pegboard and chuck and un-chuck it for each swirl do you?
Why not make a bracket that mounts on your cordless that has two pegs 6 inches from the chuck (for your 6 inch wide example). Then make a second bracket with the pegs offset a half inch from the first one and swap brackets after each row.
Two and a half inch swirls with two inch spacing may look better on something as large as an airstream and one inch offset on a pegboard guide would be pretty easy to layout and only need one bracket.

 

my idea was to lay the arbor in the holes of the pegboard that is ripped lengthwise through a row of the holes leaving a notch to cradle the drill knowing its a momentary spin in each half hole then moving to the next notch... the flexability of the board allows for working on some larger curves .. gee i duuno

 

Cool... I never thought of using a dowel before.

Back in high school, Dad taught me how to make aluminum dash inserts for my '55. His trick was to find an old intake or exhaust valve of the size you wanted (I think the one I picked was out of a Briggs and Stratton), cement a piece of leather to the face, and use valve lapping compound.