Dash Views - Final Stages Of Completion

With my Knight Rider dash now clear coated and left to dry overnight morning time taking off the masking tape I must have been like a little kid opening his presents Christmas morning, lol at least it certainly felt that way as I carefully but feverishly peeled off each strip of masking tape being extra careful to cut around any edges that might stick with my X-acto knife. As each layer of tape peeled away revealing the gleaming Lexan displays I could not help but giggle with glee like a school girl ;) lol... Yeah I know I'm such a kid with this stuff ;)

With all the masking tape off and giving the dash a good going over I can see it could use a little wet sanding and then polishing here and there with a Polishing Compound. Nothing major though and I would bet over time just the good polishing here and there would eventually take out any minor surface roughs from the clear coating. Over all I'm very pleased with the way my dash has turned out. Looking at it all glossy with the Lexan plastic overlays I had made for each of the displays it looks really sharp. Very sci-fi like and futuristic, it's a no wonder I have always loved this dash in K.I.T.T.

I need to let the dash sit for a few days to let it fully cure, but in the meantime another little job I need to do is to had paint the Voice Box Bezel, I figure it will be easier to just spray some paint from the can into a small container and use a fine brush to paint the Bezel, I'll have a lot more control over the paint this way. With this stage of my dash out of the way the only thing to do is replace those fake temporary T.V. screens with real 5 inch LCD touch screens. Another thing is to work out which one of the Switch Pod Buttons I want to use to cycle the Message Centre. I have a plan for that I posted a few articles back about how to wire each Switch Pod Button individually. For the Message Centre Cycle button all it needs to do is close a ground connection on the board terminal and this can be done with a simple SPST Relay, a Mini-Relay would be more than good enough for something that simple.

Outside of all of that my Knight Rider Dash is getting super close to completion compared to several months ago in January of 2014 when it first arrived from Knight Rider World in Italy. It's been a lot of work, fun, and sometimes frustrating but very rewarding work too, especially to finally see it at this stage of completion. :)

Starting The Dash Painting Process

I didn't think I was going to get to this part today but as luck would have it I was able to get the first coat of gloss black paint on my Knight Rider dash. In truth I still have a few minor spots on the Switch Pods to do a little light sanding on but I can do that just as easily with the painting process started. You probably can't tell in the photos as like I say it's a few minor areas but I'm picky about it so I notice.

It's sure nice though to be finally getting the dash to this stage. It looks so nice already with just the first coat of gloss black applied, it will look even nicer once it's eventually clear coated. When it's clear coated and fully cured I'll see about doing another video with the dash turned on as it will looks so nice all lighted up, animated with the finished dash surface. :)