Knobby Stalk Thingy

 This is literally just a 30 second update with a little bit of custom bling that I have made. I don’t want to use the original Triumph Spitfire indicator stalk as it’s not really the look I’m going for…Cheap British Leyland plastic from the 70’s. 

So I have liberated an Aston Martin lower arm pin from the scrap bin at work and set about with my home made lathe….. aka a combi drill in a bench vice. The threads of the pin just fitted in the chuck of the combi drill and with that relatively firm in the bench vice and a cable tie on the trigger to regulate the speed I set about with a hacksaw and shortened the overall length (about 85mm) 

Then with the flap wheel in the grinder and the pin still in the drill spinning away I shaped and rounded off the end and tapered the other end to give a nice looking stalk end for the indicators. 

With the rough shape set I then fine tuned and polished the overall finish with various grades of sandpaper to give a finish that looked smooth and even and somewhat shiny. Then I added a little detail with three groves at the one end using a hacksaw blade. 

Once this was sorted I then cut the threaded section off and using a centre punch created a position for a 7mm hole simply drilled into the body of the new indicator stalk. This will have a little epoxy on for final fit, but it is a fairly good friction fit as it is now. 

So now to add a little fine detail… after all this is an Italian inspired car so let’s add some Italian flair. I used some old enamel paint which I have hoarded from many years ago to add some colour to the new stalk end. With a fine tipped brush you simply flood each groove with your desired colour and slowly build up many layers within the groove allowing a little time between each coat to tac off a little. 

You can be fairly crude doing this as any excess paint not in the groove will be polished off when fully cured. My logic was to go with green first, red second and white last to reduce the risk of contamination into the white as it’s the lightest colour. So after about three/four layers of each colour in each groove you can just leave the whole thing for a good few days for everything to cure and firm up. Then with a lightly thinners rag wipe away any excess off the main body and it will leave the colour infill…. Boom fancy looking indicator stalk, which cost nothing but time and imagination. 

Not a very exciting update or a great chunk out of the build progress but attention to detail nonetheless and another little unique feature for my car.