Truly beautifull dash

[brianrupnow]

I bought myself an early Christmas present, a 1932 style steel dash made to fit a Model A from Brookville, for the roadster pickup project. These guys do an absolutely amazing job. This peice cost me $150 plus, but it is perfect. I build a lot of my own stuff, having played at hotrods for close to 40 years now, but there are some things that you just can't build at home with your mig and air tools. My compliments to Brookville, they have really filled a need in the hotrod community. (by the way, the pictures in the background are some of my earlier projects).

[FMXhellraiser]

Damn Brian, you did it again. Looks just as good as the rollpan, if not better.

[C9x]

The dash is a very nice piece.
And like you say, some stuff you just can't build at home.

Have you tried fitting it to the car yet?
The dash I have is a tight squeak getting it to fit under the cowl rail and onto the dash flange, but it does ok after a small struggle.

Very nice work with the rear roll pan on the other post.
Looks like it will be a one-of-a-kind deal.
Which to me is one of the best parts about hot rodding and building your own stuff.

Just for fun, here's a pic of the Brookville 32 dash in my 31 on 32 rails roadster.

The aluminum piece is natural as shown and I'm not sure how I'm going to finish it.
Perhaps a machine turned finish.
I usually make these panels from stainless, but thought I'd give aluminum a try this time around.

[brianrupnow]

Thank you for the picture, your car looks great. I built an aluminum dash panel like yours one time and "engine turned" it using Cratex sticks. When I finished, the engine turning looked O.K., but everything was very "dull". I checked around and found out after the fact that the aluminum should have been polished to a high lustre before it was engine turned. Of course, if you polish it after it has been engine turned, you polish away all of the engine turning. Oh well, this is how we learn.

[C9x]

Thanks.

Glad to hear about the dullness factor after machine turning aluminum.

I'm guessing that polishing first and turning second as you suggested will get me half-way between bare aluminum turned and shiny stainless turned.

The dash panel I made for the 32 is turned stainless and it can get overly bright and glaring sometimes.
Topless, it depends on the angle of the sun - as you'd expect - with the top on, it's heading east for the last hour or so before sunset that kills you.

Fwiw - when I do dashes I like to make a jig for drilling the instrument holes.
Just something simple that has 1/8" holes that gets saved for later changes if required.
I originally had the 32's gauges mounted in the dash and made a jig from an aluminum yardstick cut down to 32" and drilled 1/8" at appropriate spaces.

It was a lifesaver when I decided to do the turned stainless panel.
The panel was drilled 1/8" using the jig, turned and then the instrument holes cut out with bi-metal hole saws.
Everything matched up fine when it was assembled.

[brianrupnow]

I can see from the picture of your brookville dash that you are facing the same problem as I am with the 1" square tube that ties the cowl sides together----it hangs below the 32 dash. I guess I will have to cut mine out and fab one that follows the bottom contour of the dash. It wouldn't do any good just to cut the welds and move it up, because then it would foul the instruments on the inside of the dash.

[Jerilynne1965]

Very Nice Guys!!!!

[C9x]

Originally posted by brianrupnow
I can see from the picture of your brookville dash that you are facing the same problem as I am with the 1" square tube that ties the cowl sides together----it hangs below the 32 dash. I guess I will have to cut mine out and fab one that follows the bottom contour of the dash. It wouldn't do any good just to cut the welds and move it up, because then it would foul the instruments on the inside of the dash.

Exactly right as far as the 32 is concerned.
I ended up welding in a short piece of 1" square under the original cross-bar and then cutting the original piece away in the middle.
Not too bad a way to do it and it doesn't show.
Powdercoating it black helps as well.
The outer pieces that are visible aren't very noticable.
More so in the pic below, but when you're driving or riding or spectating from the outside when the car is parked the cross-bar is not easily seen.
A lot of guys bend these cross-bars to follow the curve of the lower dash and that is the way to do it.
At the time I had no way to make such a bend, but now I do since my friend bought a bender for his welding shop.....

The only instruments on the 32 that conflicted with the straight cross-bar were the tack and speedo cuz they're a little deeper than the rest.

Far as the 31 goes, there are no cross-bar/instrument conflicts.
Even so, I'll probably bend up a new bar and shorten up the side hangers just to make it a little neater.

Seems like a lot of this hot rod stuff is backtracking now and then, but that's ok cuz you're learning something.