I have been working on this for the last year on and off, and wanted to share some pictures with you guys.
At first, I just wanted to replace the center vents with the triple guage pod.
Here is the origional plastic piece customized using bondo & fiberglass:
By importfanatik at 2011-11-02
That wasnt too hard, but I quickly realized that it would crack constantly due to the different expansion rates of fiberglass, bondo and plastic,..
So I started trying to make a fiberglass mold...
Unfortunately, this took 5 attempts until I created a usable mold.
Mold1: brush on mold release, gelcoat, then 4 layers of fiberglass, wood reinforcement.
Result: aligatoring!! okay, try again,..
Mold2: brush on mold release, fiberglass resin, 4 layers of fiberglass, wood reinforcement.
Result: better, but there thin spots in the surface that quickly cracked away,. arg!
Mold3: brush on mold release, bondo, 4 layers of fiberglass, wood reinforcement.
Result: air bubles in bondo,..
Mold4: spray on mold relese, brush-on-40 liquid rubber, 4 layers of fiberglass
Result: usable!!
Here is a pic of my many failed attempts at making molds:
By importfanatik at 2011-11-02
Here is a pic of my first usable copy created from the mold!
By importfanatik at 2011-11-02
Here is a pic of my first copy, customized for my Acer A100 tablet:
By importfanatik at 2011-11-02
Here it is again but painted:
By importfanatik at 2011-11-02
Still a ways to go,...
Next step is installing the TTL bluetooth chip on my honda ECU so I can see my guages on the tablet.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.linszter.hondadatalog
By importfanatik at 2011-11-02
That plus GPS Nav & Multimedia of course..
Thanks for reading,
Regards,
- James