Dashing About

Got the £4.50 plastic middle section of a Spitfire dash a while ago, which I intend to use as nothing other than a template. The reason for the delay in proceeding is because I was considering going non-standard.

I've ditched the idea of a one-piece dashboard, as there's too much to go wrong. Making it in 3 sections at least allows you to get one section right and then move on to the next one, without having to remake the entire thing in the instance of a late mistake. Doing a single piece dash should be left till all the lessons have been learned and I am skilled. Even then it's difficult to find a suitable length of burr walnut veneer to cover the entire length, which means joins in the veneer would be required.

I now had all the panel parts necessary to make a complete, 3 piece dash; however, I wanted to change things a bit by having 4 instruments and a bank of switches on the centre panel. To that end I ordered a set of repro Smiths instruments from India (below). I need them anyway, as the originals are missing from the boxes of parts. 

The aim is to have something like this, but in burr walnut (and with chromed surrounds - except for the heater control):

It's a vast improvement on the original, which only has fuel and temperature gauges. I'd be adding battery indicator and oil pressure. I already have the top section, which is the heater controls, but fitting that in will be a bit fiddly with no room for mistakes and I'm pondering how best to do it. The heater controls have lugs at the back which have to be recessed into the ply in order to get the face flush with the front of the dash, and my routering skills are very rudimentary. Also you can't simply draw around the control for a cut-out, as the lugs on the back obstruct a clean line all the way round. I'm going to have to use something like printers' ink to make an impression of the area to cut.

The heater control part of the plastic dash centre panel can't be used, as it's integral to the plastic front and not separate.

The switches too will be problematic, as the designer of the one in the above photo used a 3D printer to make a switch retainer, rather than cutting out individual holes in the ply (a 3D printer would be useful). Then there's what switches are needed. It's almost impossible to find a photo of an original dash in which you can clearly see what switch goes where. A lot have replaced the stalk switches on the steering column with dashboard switches, as the original complement of switches was rather Spartan.

I really need to see the car dealer I know in Wickwar as he has a number of pristine, classic cars in his basement that he took over the years in part exchange and never sold - one of which is a brown, 1973 GT6. 

I had to cut a hole in the left-hand panel for a vent in order to match the similar hole on the right-hand panel. Being a firm adherent of the 'that looks about right' school, I bored a hole the same distance from the top of the dash as the right hand vent, in a position where I thought it looked as if it should go. The first problem was that the cheap, Chinese steel hole borer set I'd bought on eBay was blunt as a baby's bottom after just one hole, so I had to order a new, decent borer for Toolstation. I then proceeded to glue the veneer to it. 

You might notice a slight height variation between the centre panel and the others. Many people have mentioned this and it must have been designed this way. I corrected it on a later iteration.

It was only a little later, when checking the centre panel for the fixing holes, that I noticed the metal backing plate had a hole in exactly the right position for the left-hand vent, plus another elongated hole, the purpose of which remains unknown.

All I had to do, had I my wits about me, was to place the left-hand panel against the metal backing plate and draw around the hole from the back and it would have been in exactly the correct position.

As it transpired, while the hole was in the wrong place, the left-hand panel was too long - you can see in the photos that the left-hand panel is longer than the right-hand. How this could have happened when the original paper template was the correct size was a mystery. Cutting some off the right-hand side of it to make it fit on the left should result in the hole being in exactly the right position - I hoped. If not, I would have ended up with a very nicely veneered, but totally useless, left-hand panel. It worked.

Actually, I should have used the right-hand panel as a rough template the for left-hand - certainly in terms of panel width and the upper curvature, as they should be identical given the centre panel is in the centreline of the car. 

Having measured out (by eye, as usual) the positions for the instruments and the rocker switches I had ordered for the centre panel, I came to the conclusion that the bloke who made the nice dash up above must have mucked about with the metal backing plate, as there was no way the switches wouldn't foul it. Contact with him (in America) confirmed this. I cut out a new centre panel, extending it down so as to be able to have more area to play with. While I can always shave some wood off, I can't add it. I'll address the backing plate fouling when I receive the switches and their retaining rack from Car Builder Solutions, who do IVA rocker switches. I could position the switches below the horizontal, metal backing bar, but that would interfere with the position of the radio.

I did make another template for the left-hand panel, this time using the centre panel to set its right-hand join, and using the reverse of the right-hand panel to get the correct length and the right curvature of the top.

I considered leaving the lower cut-off in place and use that section as a glove compartment, but it's not large enough to actually hold anything. What it can be used for, however, is a cup holder when dropped at 90 degrees. Of course it would require a lid frame leaving in place around the edge on to which hinges could be affixed, which leaves only space for a 60mm cup. That's nowhere near enough for your average Costa cup, but just about enough for Hay's camping beakers. 

Then I spotted the obvious flaw - cup holders would require permanent holes in the lid. The only alternative use for a lid would be for keeping small things inside, but even then it would require the construction of a box behind the lid, which is not something I wanted to attempt.  

Went back to the original design shape and made another left-hand panel, as the first one I'd made had a few, imperceptible repairs where some of the veneer had chipped during cutting.

Something has just struck me as possible - a left-hand panel of the same depth as the right-hand one could provide space for a radio, giving me more room below the dash in the centre.

I have, however, learned some valuable lessons:

1. When wood butchering, do the difficult stuff before you do the easy stuff. If you've already done the easy stuff and make a mess of the subsequent difficult stuff, you've wasted time on the previous easy stuff, as you'll only have to do that again, as well as the difficult stuff. 
2. Don't slather the glue on the substrate when veneering. I did this with the initial left-hand panel and the resultant excess moisture content warped the veneer as the glue was drying. Not irreversible, but still a pain in the arse.
3. Always leave a 1cm overlap when veneering - it shrinks back when drying. You can always remove excess veneer when dry.
4. Always use a clamped guide bar when using a jig-saw. Freehand is atrocious.
5. Don't use a thin blade on a jig-saw when cutting a straight line - it tends to bend with the slightest sideways pressure and you don't get a true vertical cut. Use a thicker one that won't bend. 
6. Only use a thin blade on corners - thicker blades don't go round corners.
7. Don't thin out polyurethane lacquer to get thinner coats. The white spirit simply wrinkles earlier coats. Use the lacquer neat and brush it thin.
8. Get hold of a full set of original panels to renovate or use as templates, unless you know what you're doing, which I didn't.
9. Initially make a one-piece dash and cut the various holes while complete, then cut the one-piece into three, as making each panel in isolation leaves too much room for mismatches on the joins between the panels. Cutting the three panels from a one-piece ensures joins and gaps are perfect, being a saw's width (remember to use a clamped bar guide for the cutting).

I now have 2/3rds of two dashboards, with only the centre panel to complete - the most difficult part. The upper right panel is the only original, having been refurbished and re-veneered. The rest have been made and veneered by me.

If I manage to make two complete dashboards then I'll sell one. The centre panel is probably going to involve several iterations, as the hole for the heater controls is very fiddly, requiring some low tolerance, freehand cutting round complex corners with the jig-saw, which I'm not very good at - yet.