Hi All:
I've come up with a fairly easy way to improve on the guages on our models. After being inspired by Teacher, with his great dashboard on his Big Shot model, I thought I would pursue my "dashboard delima". Starting with the stock dashboard, even with a perfect paint job these still look pretty toyish.

I next tried the "stick on gauge affect": Passable but jagged edges and 2 dimenion look.

Finally I tried drilling out each gauge and attaching a guage to the back of the dashboard: much better, I think this is a great improvement.


I "googled" images of gauges and printed off a couple of different sizes (white background works best). Taped the paper with scotch tape (for protection) and glued them in place with future. After it'sdry, a drop of future on front to simulate glass. Oh: the dashboard has to be thinned down to bring the gauge closer to the front of the dashboard.


Bruce

Nice idea Bruce. I like it. I am going to try that with the M-275A1 I am building. Thanks for the tip.

a real good tip there Bruce. Thanks for sharing

Thanks for sharing. That really adds some depth to an area tht can be fairly boring on many models.

Bruce that's the best idea sense they figured to put sugar on cereal, but how did you get that chrome look around the dial?
Kerry

Great idea..one of those areas I dont enjoy doing. This could end that..thanks!

Great idea and it looks very impressive. That's one of those "Why didn't I think of that" deals.

I'm betting the chrome ring is just a bit of aluminum paint???

Wow that looks great.

So let me understand this. You found pictures of gauges from google??

I am assuming to have to resize these pictures??

Did you just use any pictures or are these authentic??

Just curious for seems a very interesting idea.

Bruce what would help me a whole lot here is letting me know what you put in Google to come up with pictures, it keeps telling me I misspelled some words, I can't figure anything to how it would give you pictures like that.

I sure would appreciate a little help.
Kerry

This is an outstanding tip and produces great results.

Kerry,
Put 'dashboard' into google and click on the images tab, you'l get loads you can use. Or any other applicable words.

Vinnie

yes thanks for sharing!!!
Ron

That is really awesome. Very neat trick. What did you use for the rings around the gauges?.
Mary (++)

I found some stuff from a company called Detail Master that has gauges, gauge faces, hoses, wiring harnesses, decals etc. They're really for 1/24 cars, but seem to fit well on dashboards.

The Chrome around the dial is simply silver paint, (easy to paint with no gauge in place).
I used the words Gauge, or Guage (misspelling works equally in Google.)
When I printed the gauge I used around 10% orginal size..


I would of loved to use original dials but I couldn't find a photo for my Blitz, I don't really think this is a problem though.

Bruce

Thank You very much, I never once give it a thought to just use dashboard, I was trying to add speedometer, and every other combination with it, and come up with nothing, not thinking to just use dashboard by itself.

awsome technique, maybe you should do a feature article on it

Simple, easy and effective. The kind of tips anyone out there likes.
Thanks for sharing

Very Very nice tip. More than useful !!!!