Painting gauge needles

akito

Keep Laughing.You're Next
Jul 31, 2006
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Springfield/Va
Do you guys have pics of these needles after they have been painted and used in your cluster at night time? I would like to see how well they still lit up after being painted over/under. Looks great during the day though!
 

suprarx7nut

YotaMD.com author
Nov 10, 2006
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Arizona
www.supramania.com
Jay C;1998572 said:
Tamiya paint are you an RC'r?

Haha, not really. I had one in high school, but never got serious about it. I was told model paint would work well, so I bought a small bottle from a hobby shop for the needles.

akito;1998603 said:
Do you guys have pics of these needles after they have been painted and used in your cluster at night time? I would like to see how well they still lit up after being painted over/under. Looks great during the day though!

Tons of pics in my lighting thread, here: http://www.supramania.com/forums/showthread.php?76463-Comprehensive-Lighting-Modification-Thread

Some of that info is here too, but I haven't updated everything yet: http://yotamd.com/toyota/mk3_supra/lighting.html

Scroll down through that lighting thread to see how well they light up with the LED needles. It makes a HUGE difference, but takes a lot of difficult work. Doing it cheaply with a lot of light "bleed" isn't too hard, but getting it as sharp as mine are now takes a good amount of extra effort.

Just painting the needles and with LED cluster backlighting:
dash-after.jpg


LED needle lighting:
p1998634_1.jpg
 

Jay C

New Member
Sep 30, 2010
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Omaha, NE
Wow the led lighting on the needles looks great. I'm not doing any extra lighting work so mine won't be anywhere near as nice.

I have a basher RC I got for xmas from my wife. She was done giving me money for car parts. I love to beat on mine big stress reliever. Which is needed some days after work.
 

akito

Keep Laughing.You're Next
Jul 31, 2006
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Springfield/Va
I've had LEDs in my cluster years ago and i love them. I'd like to get the needle to look better but I'm afraid at night it doesn't get lit up being painted. You LED in needle set up is wicked but it's really hard to tell if the needle lit up well when they're painted paired with a LED cluster in a regular set up.