BigJim

Hey. Im making a custom RX-7 center piece. Ive seen a few FB's with these on them.. For those of you who donot know what i am talking about, its the piece between your Taillights. Im currently tryin different styles and materials to determine what would work best and be the most cost efficient while still looking great and working good. Right now i am using Sheet Metal tin, plexi glass, and alot of cutting. Its working decent, but im definately investing in a dremel or something similar. If any of you have any ideas about what else i should try to make these look good, and cheap, and durable give me a few ideas. Once i get good at making them i may even sell them, i think they add a nice touch if u put in a neon or LED light behind it so u have a nice RX-7 glowing at the back of your car. Any ideas would be apreciated. My first version will be done Sept. 29th the latest.

pratch

I'm thinking some plexi or glass etching might look completely badass. However, don't ask me about all of the specifics of doing that As posted in earlier thread, let me know when you figure out what size/resolution you want the logo. Unless you have Adobe Illustrator of course, then I can just send you the ai file.

Cheers.

BigJim

I was able to create my Stencils using PSP. It worked out pretty good. I think i might try the glass etching. I belive all you gotta do is get a dremel and set the right depth and grind away all the unwanted. Once i get my dremel ill try that, but until then itl all be done using some sort of metal with a plexi cover.

BigJim

wuold anyone consider buying one of these, if so i will try and perfect them, i have alot of tim eon my hands so i might perfect them anyways

Gregs

they only way i would buy one would be if it was plastic and similar in style of the stock one and it was black and where is said rx7 lit up and could only be seen when lit up... but when it wasent lit it would appear as a stock centerpiece

-greg

Mills

iTrader: (1)

I'd be interested, but it depends how it looks when done...

BigJim

thats doable, a little more work, all i would have to do is get ahold of one of the pieces and use a dremel like u would on glass and make the RX-7 part thinner, but it would not light up that great.

BigJim

yea, imma take my time and look at a few different ways of making them. Ill slowly put up pictures and lety u all decide what way u like. Right now my main thing is getting a good Stencil style, and good measurements. BTW are the mounting points on non 84 GSL-SE's the same as on 84 GSL-SE's for that middle piece?

MarkPerez

I hear ya, man, phantom image, you know the outside
looks normal, then when lit up the image or text becomes visable. electronic,,, thats how it's done, LCD
screen. you could even have messages 'scroll' down.
In my opnion the taillight+finisher+taillight it's hard to beat the 'flow' accross the whole tailend.Now,,taillights
super-- custom.

BigJim

u could like go turbo with the amount of money u would spend on making an lcd screen with scrolling text that is editable that looks like the current back. That would be so expensive. if u want orriginal looks, but RX-7 illuminated ull have to take the orriginal piece and thin out the area u want to say rx-7 with a dremel. I think that is the only way to get it to look original, but i think itl look just as good wihtout the original, but ill find out tomorrow i hope. I just gotta get the plexi glass and ill see how it looks. if it doenst look taht good, ill try one all plexiglass then maybe i can get it to look a little more orriginal.

Gregs

bs.. you can buy the scrolling text things for cars.. and it wouldnt be hard to fabb it in to the centerpiece and still look stock

i belive there like 120 bucks or so.. if i can go turbo for 120 buck than you can shoot me.. heheh

BigJim

thats not LCD, LCD is like the portable playstation screens, the screens i think your thinking of use text like on a digital clock, taht you could do cheap, but not an LCD one, LCD screens are high pixel and arent cheap.

Sterling

I have an idea (not new)...
Get a sandblaster from Sears ($50) and then print your computer gened graphic on adhesive lable paper, x-acto what you want off, and spray it w/sand.

An example; peel off everything except the "Rx-7" you printed on the center of the sticker...well ya know.

You could sandblast the inside of the plexi, paint it black, and then do what I said. That way, you could have the "Rx-7" light up, but it would be frosted and diffuse the light better.

Do I get a discount?

Gregs

very good idea sterling!

big jim, i think its time to get to work.. hehe

mwpayne

YEP, I'd buy one like that!!

Gregs

very good idea sterling!

big jim, i think its time to get to work.. hehe

BigJim

i see what your sayting now. I think that would work pretty good, the only thing is i dunno how accurate a sand blaster would do it. It seems like it would be uneven, tahts why i was thinking of doing that with a dremel.

BigJim

depending on how much it ends up costing me to make these i may throw a few free ones around for people who helped me(minus shipping). We will see, im checking on plexi prices tomorrow hopefully. Ill fill ya all in later.

Supra calviN

would it work better if you took the aftermarket "rx-7 scripted" center piece as a starting point? if so, i might give you the one im getting for "modification" if not, ill either trade you or simply buy one off you.

oh yea, let us see some pics of what you got so far, im kind of anxious to see what you've got!

Bayce

Our Aus. models, ya cant do it -
You'd have to put it elsewhere. . .

Keaponlaffen

Yeah, SA's and AUS. FB's would have problems with that

But, a sandblaster should do a fairly even job as long as you move the gun over the work fairly evenly...

BigJim

if seomone with an Aus or SA's would send me alot of pics of the outter rear end i could try to work seomthing out. Im going to be getting some Plexi tonight if i can afford it, i jsut gotta hope i can find a bit for teh dremel taht will cut/grind plexi nicely. My tin version of it is almost completed thou. Its all dry, a nice black, im making a cover for it tonight. Its gonna look horible because i used a jigsaw, but its just 1 stage of the many i am giong to try so dont rip on me because at least im trying.

BigJim

Woohoo, stage one done. Dont know why im woohooing, currently it does suck. But its just my rough draft. Im tryin to get some pictures up, but angelfire is being an *** and not uploading my stuff so ill get them ASAP. Imma beg etting my plexi to start playing around with very soon, i am also considering making custom tail lense setups to. that would be complicated, but ill try it once i get some RX-7 plates made.

BigJim

heres my pictures:



These pictures are before i took a file and some sandpaper to it, there u can see the rough edges, but now they are looking quite smooth. Imma work on the most of tonight to get them to look good so i can put it on my car until i get my Plexi ones done

BigJim

anyone know how to get plexi to stick to painted tin, i tried some super adhesive glue, it doesnt appear to be working, so once again im going to have to sand everyhting down i think. Any ideas?