April 13, 2005
"Gauges? We don't need no stinkin' gauges!"

Notes:

• The car was supposed to be painted Sunday, but with a couple weeks of priming and block sanding, there was just a little more dust in the garage than Joe anticipated.  All of the parts are in final primer and waiting to be painted.  Joe has been cleaning out the garage since Saturday, he wants to make it as dust free as possible before he starts painting.  Hopefully the car will be painted Saturday, 4-16-05.

• Per the pictures, I've been working on the gauge cluster and vents.

• I didn't have the time to wait for electroplating the items, so I bought some chrome tape (used for model trains) and painstakingly cut it all in.  You think I'm kidding?  It took about 4 hours to do what you see below.

• I painted the gauge cluster housing, put on the chrome tape and sprayed the parts with clear to make sure that the edges don't come up.

• The fun begins... Now I have to put the jigsaw puzzle back together without any pictures (my resto books are at Joe's garage).

• Since I had "idiot lights" and I couldn't find Rally Gauges (not reproduced), I had to go with an aftermarket "Quad Gauge".  Fortunately I was able to mount the bracket on the back of the cluster housing, so I will be able to easily replace the gauge with a different style one in the future (if it doesn't grow on me).

What is hopefully going to be accomplished this week: 

• Since the vinyl dye that I purchased from Performance Years is out of stock (and won't be in stock for a month), I had to buy other vinyl dye that I thought was close.  Wrong!  It was about 4 shades lighter than the paint I used on the dash.  Compare the pictures from 3-18 & 4-1.  Since the dye that I used for the panels are local, I decided that I will just re-shoot the dash.  Hopefully I'll have that done this weekend.

• Once the dash is re-dyed, I will seriously work on getting that back together.