Art & Inspiration The History and Art of Engine Turned Material - Lets See Yours

I've seen it done on medievl suits of armor.

In my champ car I used a tightly bound wire brush in a drill press.

 

shrewd!!

 

That is some great work FF.

 

On my avatar I used my D/A sander for an exaggerated engine turn look, primarily to hide the marred & scuffed up aluminum sheeting I used on the floor pans & interior door panels, no actual layout just got after it with a fine sanding disc & a scotch pad, in this case didn't want it to look too street roddy, since it is a race car.

 

This past winter I purchased another 1937 Chris Craft dash. It was in pretty decent condition. My friend had laser cut me a stainless steel insert for the dash face. My intention was to buff and polish the dash, then buff, polish and engine turn the stainless steel insert. I had some time this past week and I thought I'd record the process. In the video I share some engine turning tips and tricks. Also, it will give you an idea how much time I put into my panels. I apologize for some of the music. The editing tool does not allow for copyrighted music, just their "stock" music. I have sped up some portions as well.

Hope you enjoy!

 

Great video TJ and awesome dash panel thanks for sharing

 

Welp...your stuff sure looks nice, but I wonder that you do not make an attempt to keep things square. You get away with just moving your guide back for the next pass by eyeball! I've only done one small thing, not as nice as yours, but I laid it all out with magic marker on square grid pattern to follow, and used a mill to keep it all true. What ever! nice job, thanks for the video

 

Thank you for the compliments Rusty Valley. Its great you are engine turning. You can certainly appreciate first hand how great it looks when you finish a project.

At 12:24 and 14:54 of the video I explain how I line up my next pass to ensure its straight. Notice before every pass, I place the panel under the cratex stick, I line the tip of the stick up with the row I just laid (half the stick will be covering the swirl above) Then I use my straightedge to ensure the line im about to lay is straight.

 

Hey TJ I have a small X Y table that’s like 24 inches that would be awesome doing your skill. I bet you can even find some numerical controls to make her a CNC engine turning machine. Let me know if you can use it I could bring it to the cheaters.
Then again there’s nothing like hands on work that gives you satisfaction!

 

Years ago I knew a guy who too a big old radial arm saw and removed the saw part and installed a small drill press in its place and could engine turn large sheets pretty damn fast and had every thing marked so he could keep a pattern and not screw up .
He used to do a lot of fire walls for guys, old air craft stuff and even some SS panels in kitchens .

I always wanted to try and copy what he made.

 

@1biggun thats a great idea and much safe then the radial saw

 

This is how the overhead dash turned out. I'm satisfied with it. I'm now wiring up the '29 AA and will soon check out continuity, then pressurize the oil system in the engine, finish up with ignition wires, plugs and distributor cap and prime the carburetor, give the starter a spin and see if it fires up.

 

Thank you, John! I am hoping to make it to Cheaterama once again this year, always an outstanding day. It would be great to catch up with you as well. Hope you're having a great summer on the water!

 

I might have mentioned this in this thread before. I didn't want to look thru all 7 pages. There is a place in Fairbury Nebraska that does custom engine turning. FPM Metals. Doesn't sound like any job is too big for them. www.fpmmetals.com 402-729-2264.