datsunfreak Posted February 9, 2021 Author Report Share Posted February 9, 2021 4 hours ago, Duncan said: I get the concept now. This should be pretty cool. 👍 I will probably trim this up a little bit before glue up, just to make things easier. 👍 Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted February 10, 2021 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2021 All my hoops done... 1 Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted February 10, 2021 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2021 Saved all my leftovers, because I think I might be able to make a matching shift knob from them... Make a circle cutting jig... And it came out okay, but I am going to try again because I wasn't happy with it... I cut the groove about 1mm too deep, and I budged up the slots for the wheels spokes. I should have done those with my router first, instead of trying to do it with a chisel after it was done (and too fragile)... 4 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted February 10, 2021 Report Share Posted February 10, 2021 Shift knob - vertical stripes or horizontal? Otherwise, watching with interest. Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted February 10, 2021 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2021 15 minutes ago, Lockleaf said: Shift knob - vertical stripes or horizontal? Otherwise, watching with interest. Vertical. The wheel will have a big stripe of walnut around the circumference (that piece above I routed), and probably a vertical walnut stripe at the top, a la race car wheel. So I glued up a thick piece of walnut with alternating red and blue pieces on either side. My intention is vertical stripes, with the wide walnut stripe right down the middle, in line with the driveshaft tunnel. 2 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted February 11, 2021 Report Share Posted February 11, 2021 I like it. Very cool. Excited to see the results. Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted February 13, 2021 Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2021 (edited) Got lucky and found a driveshaft that should work. It is apparently tough to find an F150 with both a 5 speed manual trans and an 8.8" diff, but I found one today and snagged the driveshaft from it. The truck it came from has a 117" wheelbase, and this car has a 118" wheelbase, so there's a slim chance it may work as is. We shall see once the trans is in... I got the seat cover for the passenger side all sewn up and reinstalled. And also put in my cut piece of foam to replace the air bag lump... Edited February 13, 2021 by datsunfreak 3 Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted February 14, 2021 Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2021 So, back to some woodworking foolishness... Glued up a piece of walnut and a bunch of layers of red and blue... Drilled a hole down the center and glued in a dowel rod... Then chucked that into my drill press... Since I don't have a wood lathe, I reckoned this might work as a half-assed lathe for this job. Need to pick up a wood file to do the rough shaping, then I should be able to finalize the shape with sandpaper. This will either work great, or fail spectacularly. 😄 6 Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted February 19, 2021 Author Report Share Posted February 19, 2021 On 2/13/2021 at 8:51 PM, datsunfreak said: Need to pick up a wood file to do the rough shaping... This will either work great, or fail spectacularly. 😄 Well, so far, it works great! 😁 Picked up a wood file today, and fired it up. Still just getting to the rough shape I want, so there's a fair bit more material to come off... 1 Quote Link to comment
dimlight65 Posted February 19, 2021 Report Share Posted February 19, 2021 I take it the end with the glued-in dowel will be the bottom and thus the threaded part? Looking good though! Oh, and we need a lathe at the shop too, by the way. 1 Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted February 19, 2021 Author Report Share Posted February 19, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, dimlight65 said: I take it the end with the glued-in dowel will be the bottom and thus t he threaded part? That was the initial plan, but I have since changed my mind. I drilled the non-dowel end for mounting, and I am going to cut a shallow recess in the top. My plan is that either some sort of logo, or perhaps shift pattern, will be added then encased in resin like the horn buttons I made. I ended up with a sort of barrel shape, with the bottom a little thinner than the top... This is basically how I want the finished product to look... Edited February 19, 2021 by datsunfreak 5 Quote Link to comment
]2eDeYe Posted February 19, 2021 Report Share Posted February 19, 2021 This is awesome! Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted February 19, 2021 Report Share Posted February 19, 2021 (edited) I vote for a fancy DF/DL (datsunfreak/ dimlight) emblem or "Dim Datsun Freak Light" in uber 60s or 70s font as your insert. And also Redeye is right. Pretty awesome, even more so when paired with a matching wheel. Edited February 19, 2021 by Lockleaf 2 1 Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted February 19, 2021 Author Report Share Posted February 19, 2021 5 hours ago, Lockleaf said: Pretty awesome, even more so when paired with a matching wheel. Yeah, this kinda ratcheted up the pressure on making the wheel come out good... 😄 1 Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted February 24, 2021 Author Report Share Posted February 24, 2021 So, it was definitely a white knuckle ride routing these, but they actually came out decent... 😄 Glued down to the first blue layer, then trimmed up the edge... I trimmed up the edge to make it easier to know where to place it on the next layer... As you can see, each successive layer gets glued in a different direction, for added strength, and to (hopefully) disguise the parting lines when it's finished... Now just need to do this about 8 more times and we'll be on our way... 😁 2 Quote Link to comment
EDM620 Posted February 24, 2021 Report Share Posted February 24, 2021 This is going to look really cool 👍 Quote Link to comment
dimlight65 Posted February 25, 2021 Report Share Posted February 25, 2021 Per our discussion earlier, vis a vis the router gap... could you fill it with resin? That might be interesting. A wee bit o' silver peeking out through some clear? Just a thought. Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted February 25, 2021 Author Report Share Posted February 25, 2021 13 hours ago, dimlight65 said: Per our discussion earlier, vis a vis the router gap... could you fill it with resin? That might be interesting. I probably could, if I built a mold to pour it in first, but I don't feel like the labor invested would be worth the benefits. Good suggestion, though. 👍 Quote Link to comment
dimlight65 Posted February 25, 2021 Report Share Posted February 25, 2021 5 hours ago, datsunfreak said: I probably could, if I built a mold to pour it in first, but I don't feel like the labor invested would be worth the benefits. Good suggestion, though. 👍 Oh, yeah... I forgot about the third dimension. Yeah, that would be a PITA now that I think about it. Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted February 27, 2021 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2021 After watching several people build a steering wheel on youtube, and seeing them struggle a little bit with making it round (usually doing if after it's assembled), I had an epiphany... If I made a template out of MDF, and clamped each wheel half to it, I could easily make it round before assembly... So I did just that. Used a flush trim bit to get each half to the same shape/width, then used a 1/2" roundover bit to make it a circular shape. 👍 One side came out super nice. One side came out... Well... Usable... 😄 I think you can guess which side will be the front... 😁 Still needs a lot more finish sanding, so please don't judge too harshly for how rough it looks now. But I may go ahead and glue the two halves together first... I do really like the size and thickness, though. It's exactly 1" in diameter, which is a wee bit bigger than the original Nardi rim. Those always feel too thin to me anyway... 😄 6 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted February 27, 2021 Report Share Posted February 27, 2021 It looks to me like you made an uber bitchin steering wheel. What i didn't expect was the instant Martini livery vibe it gave me. Not a bad thing, just noting it carries that vibe. I would rock that thing as is, so any progress from here is just gravy. I look forward to seeing the two pieces together and also in place. 1 Quote Link to comment
EDM620 Posted February 27, 2021 Report Share Posted February 27, 2021 Looking really good. Are you going to fill in the gap or router in a groove for the rim to fit into? 1 Quote Link to comment
Draker Posted February 27, 2021 Report Share Posted February 27, 2021 Dang this is awesome! 1 Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted February 27, 2021 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2021 19 hours ago, Lockleaf said: It looks to me like you made an uber bitchin steering wheel. What i didn't expect was the instant Martini livery vibe it gave me. Same, or maybe the BMW stripes kind of? This is not AT ALL what I thought it would look like... 😄 5 hours ago, EDM620 said: Looking really good. Are you going to fill in the gap or router in a groove for the rim to fit into? One side already has a groove routed in it for the wheel to fit into. 👍 However I wasn't totally satisfied that the gap was quite deep enough so I did add a little extra material to the routed side, some 1/32" maple to be exact. So now once it is done there will be one more color in the mix, a thin pinstripe of maple between the two halves. I glued both sides together and put every clamp I own on it, so now I'm just waiting for it to cure so I can finish sanding it... 😁 1 Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted March 1, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 1, 2021 (edited) All glued/clamped up... After some scraping and sanding... After more sanding and scraping, I starting thinking about what finish would be best. Due to some minor surface imperfections (and for durability), I decided epoxy resin would be the best option. In that vein, my wife has been wanting to do some cup spinning/decorating but we were missing the key component, a spinner thingy... Having purchased that, I made a way to attach the steering wheel to the spinning shaft with a piece of MDF... I slathered it up with resin and it is now spinning/curing... Since resin is self-leveling, I learned the hard way on the shift knob project that it doesn't want to stick to things that are round. But if you can make it slowly spin constantly, the resin will "stick" via gravity. 👍 Once this is cured, I will probably wet sand it and do another coat just to get it perfectly smooth/round. Then I'm going to stick the shift knob on the spinner to get it coated properly as well... Edited March 1, 2021 by datsunfreak 6 Quote Link to comment
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