Thread: Where to find Brushed aluminum?

Originally Posted by Meatballman

Chevrolet

Well I know that considering I own a 78 Camaro Type LT. I'm curently restoring and installing a car pc.

Well...to get of topic....that was a 73 Camaro I built in 2000-2001 for Rick Kirkindall of Dallas. If you look around, it was on the cover of Popular Hot Rodding in November 2004, and has been featured in Car Craft and Hot Rod magazines. Anyways, i used to work as a fabricator in a small <just me and the owner> hot rod welding and machine shop. The Camaro in question started out being entirely stripped, then the main body was chemically dipped to strip it then electroplated. Next, I fabricated a mustang 2 type sla front clip and stuck in under the car with fabbed subframe connectors. Then we stuck the motor in it, I fabbed the 6-point roll cage, plumbed it up and fabbed all the brackets and et cetera, then stripped it all back down to go to the paint shop <Advantage Autowerks in Irving, TX>. After paint, it came back to the shop, where I reassembled the car, wired it up, stuck in the interior, and fabbed all the aluminum interior pieces and trim.
It's that simple......
here's a lil more of the car.....

Are sheets of alluminum easy to cut into the desired shape? Are they easily mendable. What kind of cutting tool would do the job?

Depends on thickness. If it doesn't need to be structural, you can use thinner stuff and use anything from tinsnips to a dremel. If you can mock it up with cardboard and are confident in the shapes, might be worth taking it down to a metal shop and having them cut it. They can cut thick stuff without bending/warping it and it'll look clean & tight and probably wouldn't cost much, especially if you pre-draw the template onto the metal.

I got a few PM's asking about the camaro....so I will post up one of the responses about the console and cluster:
Hey...thanks. As far as the instrument cluster, that panel is all Autometer Ultralite series Gauges, you can buy them from most any automotive performance company, try www.summit.com or www.jegs.com. You can buy the speedo from them, they have probably 8 or 10 options, with different speed ranges and electronic or mechanical input. If your car is an old camaro <pre-1986 i think> you will of course have an existing mechanical speedometer cable. All of the autometer mechanical speedos will connect directly to that. If you have a later model transmission, or use a VSS, you will of course have a regular square wave VSS signal running into your cluster. The autometer electronic speedos will run directly off of this signal, and can be easily calibrated to match any gear ratios or tire sizes.
Now, for the console. The entire console is built of 1/4" aluminum plate, and it was probably totaled 4'x4' of plate to finish it. If i remember right, it was built out of 10 main pieces, then the inset pocket in the top was another 5 pieces. I used a whole assload of welding rods to TIG weld it together and leave a huge radius on the inside of the welds, so that the outside edges could be rounded off with a grinder and sander. Then just alot of cleanup and finishing to get a good brushed finish.
Unless you're a skilled TIG welder, with a few thousand dollars of equipment, your biggest cost will be the actual fabrication. I probably spent 2 hours making the foamboard mockup and cutting the aluminum, then another hour of welding, and 2 hours of finishing. I need to look through my old reciepts, but if I remember right, I ended up charging about $400 labor + $100 materials for the completed console. Quite a steal, considering the owner has well over $100,000 in the car, and the console is definately one of the more noticed unique pieces of the car.

Kick ***. Wow.

Originally Posted by DallasCamaro

Or, if ya just want brushed aluminum...... Get aluminum, sheet aluminum, whatever thickness you need. Then, for the grain you want, experiment with different sandpaper grits. Get a big flat sanding block <i use either one of those black rubber ones, about 3x5 inches, or I just use my speedboard>. Personally, I generally like my aluminum grain between 400 and 800 grit sandpaper. Just make long, straight strokes across the entire piece. I hold the board wide, so you cover the most width with every stroke. Then just be sure to start all the way at one end, and make one smooth stroke all the way to the other. Smooth, straight strokes and you'll get a smooth, straight grain.

I wish I had a better picture on here, but this was my favorite brushed aluminum project ever..... I fabricated the all-aluminum center console, the instrument cluster, and the door panel inserts for this 73 camaro. The console turned out great, welded it up out of 1/4" Aluminum, then rounded all the edges and brushed it with 400 grit.

that interior looks great. I like detail like that. Made to measure, rather than just another stick on "finish" kit.

Hey, if you're gonna do it, ya gotta do it right. Now i'm working for Lexus actually, which has really been getting my mind going about motorized screens and covers <check out the SC430>, so keep watching for my soon-to-be-completed motorized in-dash screen for the 2000 Camaro. I'm workin on a lilli 8" that will swing down away into the dash, while the head unit and dvd-rom swing out into it's place for disc-loading <the head unit faceplate is mounted remotely for controlling, so the screen only has to swing away to install cd's>, with a motorized coverplate, ala sc430, to conceal the screen when the car is off or the screen is not in use.

oooorrrrr........

http://www.phoenix-image.com/

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