[s-cars] Screening Gauges

[Dave Forgie]

Marc: A couple of comments.  Backlighting can be done.  Mance did it.

I bought the black-faced, back lit, VDO boost gauge. Disassembled it.  Sent Mance the gauge face.  He scanned it and played with the colours and fonts.  Ran a few examples at me.  We agreed on the best one.  He did a multilayer print onto film:  a opaque blocking layer on the back (to block the light from the backlight system - but leaving the font open),  a transparent red layer for the nighttime font, a transparent black layer to tone done the red for the day time font and the final grey top coat (leaving the font open). Very tricky and a lot of work. (Mance correct me if I got this out of order).

 can't remember why we (Mance) didn't start with red lexan (would have decreased the steps by one).  At this point, unless Mance steps back to plate, I think Mark Strangway's buddy is the next hope.  The VDO Ocean line is intriguing - might be a quicker but not perfect colour alternative (okay for a A-pillar pod mount but not the indash option).

Dave F.