Altezza style rear lights...

[flyonthewall]

Here's what i'm doing to my upcoming Kaminari Celica build. The bodykit is now 100% complete btw, so you should see details appear on the site later in the week. I really liked the look of the rear cluster's available for the Celica as pictured above so i had to give them a go. Unfortunately its not possible to do these as a product coz it'll be too complicated, unless the clusters were seperate in the kit to begin with.

I neglected to take pics throughout the progress of this but you should get the idea. The first part i did some time ago (no pic) when i was experimenting to see if this was possible, this was to remove the detail from the back of the kit lenses. I managed this by scraping and sanding then finally polished them out with a cotton bud in my dremel and some cutting paste, they turned out ok.

The lens housing is made from styrene tube, when a short length was glued in position it was cut and sanded to shape - quite a fiddly task!


The lenses themselves are from MV Products, they are used in railroad and military modeling. I think most of our US members would have come across these before. to fit them into the housing, i glued them to the end of a smaller diameter tubing which will slide inside the other.









Ideally, i need to scribe the 3 lines in the lens but i'm not sure that i'm brave enough to attempt that, we'll see! Hope this has been helpful and given you ideas for your projects.

[[S]ky|ine]

Wow, thats nice!!! Did you paint the chrome paint at the rear lights??? And hope to see the finishing pic!!!

[Forhod]

You did a great job on the drilling. BTW, how you do that? :tips: !
Nice idea of using the lenses.


I wonder if I can fnd them in Singapore..

[[S]ky|ine]

Yup... it seens no where have sell in singapore but maybe David's shop have it!!! I have think before making some euro tail lights but i can't find any lense!!! lolZ

[TheSyndicate]

I bow down to your skills! I can't wait to see that thing finished!

[flyonthewall]

I have come across a couple of place online which stock them;
http://www.walthers.com/exec/page/manuinfo/v516
http://www.discountmodels.com/m.v._lenses.htm
and i think hobby heaven have them too

Originally posted by Forhod
You did a great job on the drilling. BTW, how you do that? :tips: !

I drew around the tube at the postion i wanted it. I drilled in the centre of the circle with small drill in a pin vice -1.6mm was the largest i had. I then opened up the hole with a knife then filled away upto the edges of the circle.

[Forhod]

Geez, thanks for the tips!

[wkma7six]

Originally posted by flyonthewall
[IMG]
Ideally, i need to scribe the 3 lines in the lens but i'm not sure that i'm brave enough to attempt that, we'll see! Hope this has been helpful and given you ideas for your projects.

Hey Chris. Here's a tip for you 3 scribed lines. I use this technique learned from model airplanes panel line rescribing.

Try to find some Dymo label tape. I think they're also under the name Rotex. These are usually found in office supply stores. Cut them into very fairly thin straight strips and since they're self adhesive just remove the backing and apply to your clear part and carefully scribe a thin line with you scriber of choice.
Hope this will allow you to add your final details.
-Walter

[hiver77]

Hi Chris,

what's size are those lenses? I'm guessing ~ 0.2" - 0.3"?

[supratuner]

damn ... those lights are bad
im gonna try to do that now

[Integra14]

those are really sweet.. could u do like a progress steps for that?

[Suislide]

AAAH!!! RICE LIGHTS!!!

just kidding dude. while i hate those lights (way too overused these days, and they were ugly to begin with), i have to admit you did a really good job on them and your technique of making them was awesome.

[flyonthewall]

Originally posted by hiver77
Hi Chris,

what's size are those lenses? I'm guessing ~ 0.2" - 0.3"?

They're 5.5mm or 0.2165" to be exact! The product code is L210.

Originally posted by wkma7six


Hey Chris. Here's a tip for you 3 scribed lines. I use this technique learned from model airplanes panel line rescribing.

Try to find some Dymo label tape. I think they're also under the name Rotex. These are usually found in office supply stores. Cut them into very fairly thin straight strips and since they're self adhesive just remove the backing and apply to your clear part and carefully scribe a thin line with you scriber of choice.
Hope this will allow you to add your final details.
-Walter

Thanks Walter, i had thought about doing it in a similar way with masking tape. If you lay down 3 or more layers, one on top of the other, it will give you a good edge to use as a guide. I want to scibe the lines on the inside of the lens so the Dyno method won't be flexible enough to stick down i'm afraid. May main concern is spacing them apart equally.

[RyanGiorgio]

THats really creative. It looks just like the ones in the pictures.

[primera man]

ONCE AGAIN YOU SHOW US YOUR BRILLIANT MODELLING SKILLS !!!
First class job......looks so much better. Almost looks like the real thing.
Awesome work Chris