356 Replacement rear lenses.

[acpaterson]

Hi guys,

in my 356 Speedster rebuild, one of the items I've had to replace was the rear tail lights.. Besides being very limited in availability (Overseas), and at a HUGE cost to post over, I'd previously done some small Resin casting and Silicone Molding, and decided to try and make my own lenses. Well without elaborating too much, here are some Pics of the finished result.

Here's what my lenses looked like. Faded, Melted, and ready to be binned.



Borrowed a pair from another Speedster Owner, molded them, then poured clear resin and voila. Top lense is my home made replacement.







And then I also decided to attempt making "Euro-Spec" lenses, eg: Orange and Red.





I'm very pleased with the finished result, and saved myself a pile of cash. I can possibly look at making repro lenses for very old cars if you have an existing, straight master lense to create a mold from.. Let me know if you're needing something done similar to this.

cheers

Alan

[arnocill]

Well done! It looks great

[riaanj]

That looks awesome, great work!

[Bossie2004]

Hi Alan, how much woulda set of the Euro Spec lense be for the Speedster? Looks like you and Gary (FlatFour) will make a mean team ...

Cheers,
Marius.

[acpaterson]

Thanks guys,

@ Marius, thanks man, Yeah I bought a replacement set of rubbers from him and borrowed his old lenses to make the mold. I'm guessing 500 bucks for a pair of USA Spec and 700 for Euro Spec. They are fiddley to make, and I only made the one pair up to now, so, shouldn't be a problem to make them again, but after popping our about 6 or 7 pairs which were all binned because of issues, it starts to add up.

regards

Alan

[Barry]

Nice job Alan!!
Are you using polyester, acrylic....something else? I have looked at this a couple of times but never got around to it.... also never got good answers from local composites guys on dye/pigments.
For interest sake do you see any shrinkage either in the silicone or the casting? IIRC the cheaper silicone (get mixed up with addition- and condensation- curing) will shrink over time rendering an older mould less usable.

[acpaterson]

Howzit Barry,
I've used this Silicone for about 10 years while building models etc, and I've not really noticed any form of Shrinkage over that period. I haven't really measured either, but never had a scenario where the finished product didn't fit it's intended position.

This is a Urethane Resin with matching pigments, which are seriously concentrated. In a cup of 40 grams of resin, I coated the bottom of 2 wooden sosatie skewers 1 cm worth of red pigment to get the colour right. Very easy to get it wrong or too dark as in one of my previous pours which turned out too purple.

The Tech sheet from AMT says around 1 % shrinkage can be expected, nothing noticeable in this application. I have fitted a pair onto my car and they fit perfectly.

regards

Alan

[Barry]

Cool, thanks Alan. I chatted to John at AMT a couple of times about translucent resin/pigment systems but never did get the info he promised to forward.... May ask you for details if I get to needing something like this again...

[acpaterson]

That's strange, but sure no problem Barry, Will be glad to offer advice. Not a Pro in this space but I've had success with the things I've had done.

Cheers

Alan

[flatfourfan]

Have a bump.............good work Alan.

[Bossie2004]

So Alan got the Lenses, Gary got the rubbers - who does the bit in between?

[flatfourfan]

I was thinking about getting blanks done in alli and then having them worked down as well as a LED bulb holder, but prices for something like this far outweigh what a complete unit would cost new (knock off).

Best bet it to buy a second hand set from the US and just refurb the lenses and rubbers.