abadss

iTrader: (4)

anyone ever done this? i have a scan of the factory gauge cluster and was thinking about making something unique on my own. i saw a writeup on this a long time ago, but cant find it again. seems like it was done on a ford splash truck or something. i would think it would hold up fine if you used a good material to print onto, at worst you could make a new one in a few years if it faded. any thoughts on this?

ncSSu

iTrader: (1)

sounds like I good idea to me

Ling_650vette

iTrader: (1)

Im sure if you used quality print it'd work fine. You could always seal it and make it last a lil bit longer too

Brett95z

iTrader: (-1)

Its very tricky to get the overlay around the needles if you printed them yourself. IMO its better/easier to just buy them, they wont rip and they will last alot longer/look better.

abadss

iTrader: (4)

yeah, i am sure it would be easier to buy them, thats always the case. but i thought about trying something different, using the color scheme of my car on the gauges. nothing anooying and ghey like flames or something, bu t something subtle like SS emblem, build #, hp, etc... but using the colors like NBM, silver and black. i think it could be done with a little practice and a few trys. i even have access to a laser cutter in the shop back at my college i can use at anytime. i thought about making an entire new cluster face out of plexi or something. i dunno, i might mess around with that scan and post up some ideas.

Brett95z

iTrader: (-1)

I see what your saying, and i was thinking the same thing when i tried it. I spent about 4 hours trying to get it to work and just finally said screw it. To me its more work than its work to get it to work. It never even really looked that good. You need to hvae a real high quality printer and nice paper. I went out and bought really nice paper and everything. It was basically money down the drain that i should have just used in the first place to buy a nice set of overlays.

Anyways, what you have in mind sounds cool, i just wouldnt get your hopes up because its really hard to get them to look right.

abadss

iTrader: (4)

how would it be so hard to put them on if you made them just like the overlays?

Brett95z

iTrader: (-1)

Its hard to get them around the needle base without ripping them. The real overlays arent printed on paper so they dont rip easily. You cant cut them to be the exact size as the base or it will look goofy.

Im not saying dont try it, im just telling you it most likely wont turn out as well as you want, and the money you spend on paper etc would be better spent on the actual overlays. But thats just my opinoin.

abadss

iTrader: (4)

oh, yeah i can def see what you are saying. my friend owns a graphics design shop, and has tons of awesome printers and cools vinyl type stuff i could print on. so i may try something like that.

BitViper

iTrader: (63)

Some one has a site wher they offer some templates that they already have done...but Ive lost the link....

BitViper

iTrader: (63)

Wrong!
http://www.bfranker.badz28.com/fbody/overlays.htm

abadss

iTrader: (4)

yeah that looks like one of the links i read up on back when i had this idea initially. it looks like the pages have been moved. i wonder if there has been any activity on this, or if it just died?

InfiniteReality

iTrader: (6)

I wouldn't do it myself. It'd be too hard to get the backlighting right and the exact size so all lighting shows. This is if you did it in vinyl. I did something similar on my 93 with some translucent plastic material. Same material they use on Coke machine covers. Came out good and replaced the gauge face entirely, but never could get the light from dispursing 100%. I also changed all lights in the car to blue and was the reason for doing it. Did white face and black face. Black was the best one. Notice I changed the font on them as well. BTW, I drew all the gauge faces up in CAD so they were 100% to scale.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...GaugeOverlays/

abadss

iTrader: (4)

those look good. the lighting is the thing that i am worried about also, but i can always try and if it doesnt work, take them off. i was thinking about cutting a new back piece of the cluster from black plexi, with all the holes cut out for light to go through. then, print my overlays and place on the new plexi piece. but it seems like alot of layering of custom pieces, so i am not sure about how much time it would take. all of this would be done on a laser cutter, so accuracy shouldnt be an issue. we'll see i guess

InfiniteReality

iTrader: (6)

Well, I was talking about accuracy as in have them scaled perfectly so they do overlay. But if you cut new plexi, then that won't be a problem. You could also use any color translucent vinyl as your backing and they'll light up whatever color you want. You will also need to cut a black background out as well due to the fact black is the only color that will not allow light to go through. Just the little ones I made took lots of time and effort. Worth it? To me yes, cause my Formula lit up blue instead of stock red.
Would I do it again? If I had time, yep I would. Anything to be different than everyone else..

abadss

iTrader: (4)

yeah, time isnt something i have an abundance of at the moment. but this is something i would like to do in the near future when things calm down. i think it could be a cool project, might could even make them well enough to start selling them