Festive fun

[rhattersley]

Once the fun & games of Christmas was over I picked up a horrible cold so I was in no state to do anything significant on the car. I did find a satisfying, yet low key, job that I could manage in small doses though - making a couple of escutcheons for the bonnet catches.

Step 1: Cut a chunk out of an old, cast aluminium TV stand that was headed for the scrap metal merchant.

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Step 2: Introduce the chunk to the bench grinder...

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Step 3: ... a few grades of sandpaper

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Step 4: ... the pillar drill

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Step 5: ... and a few squirts of lacquer.

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I'm pretty pleased with the end result. It's not commercial quality, but does the job without looking too bad. Interestingly, even using a pillar drill the countersink bit oscillated more than I'd hoped on the large, central hole. The hole ended up slightly faceted and needed cleaning up with a file. I could have tried a friend's metalwork lathe but it didn't seem worth it by that point.