Dashboard conversion from left to right

[DaveP]

Here in Australia we have right hand drive autos. The vast majority of kits are left hand drive. I'd like to adapt/modify/make my 1/25 models to have a right hand drive dashboard.  My skills are not up to cutting up the (single) dashboard that come in my kits. I thought about trying to copy a dash in resin or something and then trying to adapt the clone.

Any tips on how to do so or does anyone sell or make RHD dashboards?

[modelercarl]

Shapeways should be able to just reverse the image and print one for you....

[Yahshu]

The dash on the old AMT 60 falcon ute is an easy swap. 

[ShawnS]

While some dashboards are easier than others to convert there is no single easy method to do the conversion, scratchbuilding skills are a must. The last dash that I converted to RHD was for a Beemax Volvo. I made 4 resin copies of the kit LHD dash then I cut them up into sections and re-assembled them into one unit. Because of the amount of cutting required there was no way that I could have done it with just the original kit dash. It took a bit of problem solving and two weeks to do and it came out great in the end. I had also previously used a similar method to do a RHD Sierra dash but I didn't need to make resin copies as I had a few spare LHD dashes to work with. Here is the Volvo dash.

What kind of dashboards were you wanting to convert?

 

Cheers

ShawnS

[Foxer]

Many modern dashboards do convert well. I did a couple by just cutting out each side the same amount and puttying them back in.

This was a right to left hand drive

 

[BigTallDad]

22 hours ago, modelercarl said:

Shapeways should be able to just reverse the image and print one for you....

MS Paint will also do that

[Anglia105E]

The only company that produced a 1:24 kit of the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud was Minicraft of the United States, which is also available as the Revell version, and the dashboard is LHD. Most of my builds for Silver Clouds are RHD so I converted these relatively easily. Drilled a hole for the RHD steering column, filled in the hole for the LHD steering column, and a little bit of tweaking for the glove compartment and instrument panel details. Having said ' relatively easily ' this is a very basic kit, it has to be said ( 26 pieces max ).

David

[peteski]

15 hours ago, BigTallDad said:

MS Paint will also do that

You can't send a MS Paint image file to a 3D printer.

[DaveP]

On 13/05/2019 at 7:07 PM, ShawnS said:

While some dashboards are easier than others to convert there is no single easy method to do the conversion, scratchbuilding skills are a must. The last dash that I converted to RHD was for a Beemax Volvo. I made 4 resin copies of the kit LHD dash then I cut them up into sections and re-assembled them into one unit. Because of the amount of cutting required there was no way that I could have done it with just the original kit dash. It took a bit of problem solving and two weeks to do and it came out great in the end. I had also previously used a similar method to do a RHD Sierra dash but I didn't need to make resin copies as I had a few spare LHD dashes to work with. Here is the Volvo dash.

What kind of dashboards were you wanting to convert?

 

Cheers

ShawnS

53 and 56  AMT Ford pickups

[DaveP]

Thanks to all above, especially with pictures. Foxer your fine cutting skills are impressive. I've ordered some mould making silicon putty that I'm hoping I can make a mould with to make resin copies that I can use like Foxer and ShawnS have done. I dunno about 3D stuff. Dave

[Foxer]

I'll  have to go down and look ... I have at least one of those pickups. The dash's have to be simple but symmetry may not be perfect.

[Tom Geiger]

Some dashboards are symmetrical and easy to swap. Here’s an AMT 51 Chevy I did sometime back.

Others like the 55-56 Chevy could even be done without cutting, as easy as pasting photo reduced images