HG's Dream Car Build - Shelby Cobra Kit

[4u2nv]

Originally Posted by hgs_notes

I did better than that by going to a dealer for HOK and looked at the samples.

Finally got some progress on the dash. As I've mentioned before I want a wood dash. At first I was just thinking about something nice like a classic British sports car. Maybe some exotic wood. Just something different than a vinyl covered piece of sheetmetal. Then a friend told me about a new laser cutter he had access to that can basically carve wood into an image that is 3d. It's not just etched, the laser cuts the wood changing power to change the depth of the cut. What came to mind was snakes. If we could find the right image or have someone create one of snakes coiled up and then have the laser cut it into the wood. It took him a long time to figure out how to really use the machine but last week he was able to run a test.

The image he chose was a black and white Pic showing a snake coiled up. The image needs to be grey scale for the laser to work with. It turned out great. He ran the same image twice, next to each other and he stained one in black. I think it loses some depth and detail doing that but it was my idea. I asked him to try a different image that I sent him that after being converted to grey scale would have more variation. It turned out fantastic. He tried a couple things like lightly sanding it, wire brushed, stain and varnish. The original board right off the cutter was my favorite but it has to have something on it to seal it and protect the wood.

So here is a sample that we will be cutting the dash from. This is mahogany with varnish only. Also posting some pics of the earlier attempts.

What a fantastic idea you had there , you won't see another one like it , I like that .