I was thinking of going nuts with some machine turned panels. I was looking for How-too, photos of home made panels, any success or horror stories. Thanks for the input
I don't really have any photos but I made one for my Henry J and am going to do the dash of my Buick. I cut down one of the 3M/Scotchbright pads and chucked it up in the drill press. Made a grid real light on the aluminum and went to it. Pretty easy actually. Came out great and looked cool. Maybe I can get on the Buick one this weekend and shoot a few pics...
The scotchbrite pad sounds like a better idea than what I did. I used a 1" wire brush in my drill press and my HF bead roller. I'm pretty happy with it for being my 1st attempt at anything like this. I'm going to try it again and try to get the bead a little straighter. It will hold the gauges in my 62 Chevy truck.
Back in the 1970's & 80's I did over a half dozen Bugatti GP firewalls and dash panels, we had a special fixture and guide to produce even lines. A 48x48 piece of 3/4 plywood had both left and right sides marked off in half inch increments. There was a metal guide attached to a 2x4 that the grinding fixture in a hand drill fit into. The aluminum sheet was covered in valve gringing compound and you just turned circles until you got to the end of the line. Move the guide up AND over half the diameter of the circle and did it all over again. VERY monotonous work but looks great once it is finished.
****! I had a great link to some guy's site that was great at it and he emailed me back whan I had a question...I did my own on a Bridgeport with a dowel and some valve seat compound and it turned out pretty damned cool. If I run across that site again, I'll post it.
A million years ago R&C did an article on it. They said the pros used hard a rubber dowel that was impregnated with an abrasive.
I think the abrasive impregnated dowel works well for stainless, but if it's aluminum, the scotchbrite trick works good. Now to make a long story longer, My dad is a tool and die maker and made a set of (let the B.S. begin) MUDFLAPS for our '73 GREMLIN (in 1974). The dashes of Gremlin X's has simulated engine turning, like Trans Ams, so he made mudflaps out of stainless with the same pattern using the abrasive stick and lapping compound. I was 9 and he let me do it, he just changed the position of the guide when I got done doing a line of circles on all 4. MUDFLAPS, GREMLIN and I Live in FLORIDA, talk about a 3 time loser.
Eamonn Keogh is the man when it comes to engine turning. He has done a panel that I had Barnett stripe (I don't think his eyes will ever be the same) and he also did the top of my stainless still, er, water distillation unit. http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~eamonn/et/et.htm
I made a dash insert for my 33'. Rather than make a jig, I just did it on an end mill. I messed around with alot of different "tools". I ended up just using a wire brush, but I'll have to try the impregnated rubber next time (that sounds funny ). Cheap to do and jazzes up the dash quite a bit.
[ QUOTE ] Eamonn Keogh is the man when it comes to engine turning. He has done a panel that I had Barnett stripe (I don't think his eyes will ever be the same) and he also did the top of my stainless still, er, water distillation unit. http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~eamonn/et/et.htm [/ QUOTE ] That's the guy!! He's bad ***...friendly, too (on the internet, anyways).
I used an old aluminum highway sign and a scotch brite rolock in a drill press for the dash of my 61 Chev Truck. The biggest problem I had was turning the edge and the guide getting in the way because my guide was too thick. I ended up useing my machinist square and clamped it to the drill press table so now I have a turned square The rolock was used so it gave a different pattern than a new one. Word of caution - it is addictive
I was laying out my dash with a fine sharpie, while dreaming uo some kind of fence to use for straight lines on my drill press. Messed up the lines and took the wire cup after it to clean it up. Then I said hey, what would this look like? So I hit it all over making eyebrows all over it. Then I got the rattle can of "clear porcelean refinisher" out of the yard sale box and sealed it up. 5 minutes and done. The abstract pattern is easier to look at and I didn't spend half my day on it. A precision finish would not have fit the car's demeanor anyway.
There used to be a great Tech-O-Matic piece on engine turning by (I believe) C9. Abrasive impregnated rubber stuff can be found at www.mcmaster.com and www.mscdirect.com. If you don't have a catalog from each of these companies, call and get one. They're free and they have hundreds of pages of all sorts of things that will make any rodder's life easier. The easiest way to do engine turning is in a milling machine. Moving the table in regular steps makes for a very regular pattern. My small end mill, for example, moves 0.050" for each turn, so I do 5 turns to cover a half inch circle half way (0.250"). Another good option is to use a drill press, but you'll need to take some time in laying out the spacing. A wire ball (like a wire wheel, but spherical) can be used in a hand drill, but the results aren't as smooth or "period-correct". Rubber abrasives in a hand drill will skate all over the surface, unless you have some sort of fixture, as described above. I've thought about engine turning a curved surface, like an aluminum body, using a wire ball and a plunge router, but I haven't tried it. Here's a link to a guy's engine turning page: http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~eamonn/et/et.htm And here's a link to a small company that does the same thing on gun receivers and other small parts: http://www.customjewelshop.com/ --Matt
[ QUOTE ] How does one do engine turning on contoured surfaces? Thanks, Ed [/ QUOTE ] You would have to use a flexible mandrel with the abrasive on the end of it.
I know Eastwood has a little kit of those impregnated rubber sticks www.eastwood.com - I used thenm with a drill press and some wd-40 as lubricant- came out pretty good- wish I had a picture with me
i was doing a piece of stainless with the eastwood stick on a drill press....the part that ****s is that the depth of the press wont allow for a large piece of metal
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