Torino console

I started working on my console for my Torino. Trying something new...I'm gonna try to paint it to look like burl wood or some other exotic wood, i watched a how to video on it and its not too bad since its easy to redo if u dont like it...i'll be sure to get some good step by step photos this time, lol. The design will include 2 cupholders still, not sure if they will fit side by side so i might do one infront of the other. The armrest will still have more added to it so it wont look so skinny (plus i need mounting points).    Hope to have it done next week. It looks great in the car, i'll get an incar shot today when i get a bit farther on it.

hey man looks great what year is your torino? i use to have a 73.D

MECP First Class Certified Installer.

Nothing is impossable, it's just more expensive.

I have a 73 4 door, although i'm planning converting it to a 2door. I already put bucket seats in the front. The best part about the 2door conversion is that i'll have a huge area on the sides to make custom panels which will probably house some mids and a 10" sub, but thats a ways down the road.

I never got around to painting the console, hopefully soon though. hopefully the pictures explain themselves well enough, though there are a few i didnt take during the process. On the cupholder piece u can see that it is lifted up on the front a bit when i have the fleece stretched tightly on it so i made the MDF piece to hold it down. The MDF piece looked bad so i removed it later on although it did serve its purpose with holding the part that flexed in place till the rest of the cupholder was glassed. The cupholder is fairly close to the dash but it holds everything i drink, just not sure about things like big gulp cups, although the cupholder on the right does have more room and might even if the one on the right doesnt. This is a temporary console till i have the $$ to go nuts on my car then i'll make something that blends into the dash. this is just an experament i did on scrap MDF. I wont be using this method on the console, i think i just got lucky cause it was a small area and the paint didnt dry too quick. I primed it then sanded with 180 and sprayed on some chevy orange paint, then i let it flash and sprayed on some clear...i didnt let the clear set too long cause i was impatiant then i sprayed on some cherry red and quickly crinkled some plastic wrap on it, then lifted off the wrap...it looked like garbage so i sorta played around with it with my fingers which sorta gave it the burl look. I topped it with about 5 layers of clear and then wetsanded with 800 and then put 2 more coats on.   The way i will be painting the console is with acrylic for the base color and oil for the top which i can play around wit to give different grains or effects, i may use a brush with darker acrylic after the oil if i feel i need to give it a different look (this is the method i saw done on a video once so i'm gonna give it a try) and then when its done i'll put 7 coats of clear on it. Apperantly it always lookes sorta junky till its got clear on it and i thought this piece that i experamented with was gonna look junky, but i changed my mind now.

D00d, awesome job first off. Second off, quick question, how did you fabricate the cup holders? Are they all FG, and you made a mold? I've been wanting to make some for my car, for ages now, but didn't know how. Thnx.

thanks pichecm.  The cupholders were made from a generic console that had 2 cupholders.  I cut the cupholer part out and flipped it upside down so i was fiberglassing the reverse side to make a duplicate.  If u want to reuse it u should use a release agent of some sort.  I mixed up a decent batch of resin and poured it into the mold then took a paintbrush and wet the entire mold, once the entire cupholder mold was wet i put cut up pieces of matt down, pushing it into the tight areas with the brush and making sure it stuck everywhere. then i dumped on a pile of resin and pushed more matt into it and kept mixing the matt and resin till i was happy with it.  I put it out in the sun to harden and then ripped off the plastic mold (i never used a release agent and ended up ripping the plastic to pieces to get the FG out), once the plastic was off i had an exact copy of the plastic cupholder but in fiberglass so i could bond it better to the rest of the project.  the bodyfiller was minimal since the large amount of resin made a nice smooth shell.