Category: Ferrari

Ferrari 599 GTO Sign

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Blanks of poplar wood are machined with CNC…
Initial coat of primer helps fill in minor scratches and pits in the surface…
Primer and glazing putty help make surfaces smooth….
Once the majority of the finishing has been completed, the characters are cut from their backing…
Characters placed on a solid poplar blank and prepped for forming…
Initial styrene pull looks good!
All individual components of the characters are formed individually…
Rough cut of the main sign is cut with CNC….
The styrene parts are test fit into the main sign…
Main sign has been trimmed and ready for testing the G, T and O letters…
Painted “G” is fitted into the main sign…
I originally thought I was going to use a metalized laminate material for the characters, but I couldn’t draw the material deep enough without creating stress marks on the material….see top right of pic…
Main sign with first coat of primer….
Characters are painted black first, then sprayed with a metallic paint….
Test fitting the “O”….
First coat of black on the main sign….time for wet sanding and 2 additional coats of black….
Finished!!!
Finished!!!
Finished!!!
Finished!!!
Finished!!!

If you’ve viewed any of my previous posts, you know that I’ve got a thing for anything related to Ferrari. When Ferrari introduced the 599 in 2006, I fell in love. However, that love turned to lust four years later when they announced the 599 GTO. Ok, that sounds weird to lust after a car, so we’ll just say that I got excited…..excited because it was the third car in their history to wear the GTO badge. (The first being the 250 GTO in 1962 and the second in 1984, the 288 GTO.) Anyways…..on to the build!

I’m always up for a good challenge, especially when it requires the potential use of new materials, techniques, and tools. This was a project that involved a new and unchartered territory for me: thermoforming. I’ve always been interested in the possibility of making higher quality, duplicate parts quickly and economically, so thermoforming seemed to be the logical way to go. I was introduced to thermoforming while at my day job, working for a packaging company as a designer/prototype developer. I learned from a variety of seasoned veterans in the packaging industry about thermoforming and how it surrounds us every day. Things like yogurt cups, backlit signage, and packaging, all incorporate thermoforming somewhere in the process.

Anyways…..before you can vacuum form, you need a vacuum former. Well, that was kind of an issue, since I didn’t have one laying around. So I did what any right-brained, curious individual would do….I researched the interwebs and built one myself. It’s pretty basic, when you get right down to it. All you really need is an oven box, a vacuum platen, a vacuum pump, and an air tank or two. After that, the perfection of the parts lies within the creation of the molds themselves. I’ll dedicate a whole other post to the construction of the vacuum former itself, but for now, enjoy the pics of the 599 GTO sign!

CNC Photos

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I’ve been playing with a new technique that I accidentally stumbled on while playing with Adobe Photoshop a couple weeks ago. I was actually working on some graphics for my “real” job one afternoon and needed to reproduce somewhat of a “halftone” pattern. After a while, my mind started to wander and I started thinking about how I could use this very distinct graphic style in some of my other projects. It wasn’t long before I was toying around with the idea of carving photos using this technique with CNC. A lot of the editing is done in Photoshop and then imported into my CNC software. Take a look at my first couple attempts at using this new technique. I’m still trying to perfect the technique, as the same settings in Photoshop are NOT used for each image.The average cutting time for a 14″x14″ graphic is approximately 4-5 hours of cutting time.The images are best viewed from a distance.

The Shadowbox Project

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This is a project that I am currently in the process of designing. I was asked to design a custom display that would showcase a pin and keychain collection. The client currently has an Arc Display, shown in this gallery, and wanted the pin/keychain display to compliment the Arc Display. The shadowbox display that currently houses the collection was purchased from a craft store. Check out the gallery below for the original shadowbox, concept drawings, and renderings for this project.

Auto Art & Design Projects

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Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve always had a fascination for cars, particularly the high-end italian type! I’m an avid Formula One racing fan and die cast car collector. I started collecting in college and it wasn’t long before I had amassed quite the collection for myself. I was running out of room to display them and I came up with the idea to build a special display case to showcase the cars. It wasn’t long before other collectors, enthusiasts, and owners started contacting me about creating displays for their collections. However, it didn’t stop there. Soon I was being asked to create replica items and single cars displays, and other miscellaneous items. Building these custom items is nice change of pace for me after spending most of my time in front of the computer. Enjoy!

Ferrari Formula One Nose – Half Scale Replica

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At the time of this project, my Ferrari-collector client couldn’t find any scale replicas of a Formula One Ferrari nose and was looking for one to display on the wall in his office. Yes, you read that correctly. I was going to build the front-end nose assembly from a car that produces the most beautiful sound in the world; the Formula One V10. I decided to model it after the 2003 Ferrari driven by then driver Michael Schumacher. It was decided that the nose would hang on the wall and be built at 1/2 the original size. My references were several 1/18″ scale HotWheels die cast cars and lots of photos taken from books, internet, and the actual race car. The entire project took almost 3 months to go from concept to finished product. At this point in my life, I wasn’t too familiar with the art of fiberglassing. I had been reading about it and thought that this project would be the perfect opportunity to try this new technique. I contemplated several ways in which to construct the nose because it would ultimately have to be built in several pieces. It also needed to be assembled and disassembled without any problems. A couple years have gone by since I made this and i can assure you…..I would definitely consider doing things differently should I need to make another one! In the end, it was a very valuable learning process for me. I learned many things about fiberglassing….especially what NOT to do.

Ferrari Logo Lightbox for Bookshelf

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One day over the summer I got a call from one of my local Ferrari enthusiasts. Her current everyday vehicle was a 1999 Ferrari F355 Spider and she had several miniature die cast collectibles and books that she was looking to display. She had purchased a bookshelf from some high-end furniture store and wanted to modify it by adding a back-lit logo display on the top. I asked her if she could send me a picture of it….she said she could do better and brought it over within 30 minutes of our conversation. After seeing some of my work, she told me to “just make it look cool.” The bookshelf featured a black, “weathered” oak wood-grain texture and she wanted to maintain this same appearance in the logo display so that it didn’t look like an “add-on.” So the challenge for me was to duplicate the same style onto the logo display. No problem….

Prancing Horse Sculpture: Part 1

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Sometimes, no matter what I do from day to day, it always seems like I end up doing the same thing over and over again. I’ve been feeling the urge lately to carve something. I’ve been playing around lately with mold-making and weighing the pros and cons on the expensive materials needed to experiment. Mold-making is easy. It’s simple. But it can be expensive. It can be even more expensive if you don’t do the research needed for your specific project.  Continue reading “Prancing Horse Sculpture: Part 1” →

Ferrari Dino Display

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This was a project that I did for the then-director of the Ferrari Club of America. I was approached by another member to showcase his 1971 Dino 246 GT in a special display case for his office. The display was to be kept simple and we needed to use images taken from the most recent club program; the last program he would be apart of since he was retiring. So other than the images, we needed a car to display. Pretty simple, right? Not exactly……I was counting on Continue reading “Ferrari Dino Display” →