Formula One Track Wall Art

This was a project that I did recently for myself. I get quite a few car magazines and had seen something recently that caught my eye…..wall displays inspired by the many race track configurations in the world, including Formula One, Nascar, and Indy. So naturally, I thought the Formula One series was pretty cool and decided to make one myself. I chose the Formula One race track in Austin Texas….The Circuit of the Americas.

It all started with two sheets of ½” baltic birch plywood glued together. The glued pieces were then laminated with a sheet of painted styrene. Once complete, the piece was adhered to the CNC table using painters tape. (I could have used double-sided tape) The cutting process only required 3 programs…one for the outside profile, one for the inside profile, and finally a bevel on the top edge to finish off the sides. Cutting time took approximately 18 minutes total. I considered using screw brackets to mount the piece to the wall, but I wanted some depth so I decided to use metal stand-offs, therefore allowing the race track to sit 1-½” off the wall. I used a 1″ extension rod for ceiling fans and cut pieces slightly oversized. I then chucked them into a lathe and machined the ends to their final length. I cut keyhole slots in the back of the display, figured out where to screw holes into the wall, and attached the stand-offs. It looked ok, but I felt it was missing something so I decided to add the “Circuit of the America’s” logo. I could have cut the logo into the face of the display, but it would have been tiny and I didn’t want to destroy the nice, continuous smooth surface of the race track. I came up with a plan to incorporate a piece of acrylic into the display and cut the logo out of vinyl and adhere to the acrylic panel. When I was finished with Austin, I decided to make the infamous Monaco race track! Check out the pics below for a couple progress shots as well as the final displays. Enjoy!

 

 

Ferrari Formula One Nose – Half Scale Replica

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.