DIY making gauge faces?

[Forcerouge]

Hi everyone,

My gauge cluster didn't really like the past ten years under the sun.
Tachometer is still okay, but the speedo has seen better days...
IMG_20230712_222200.jpg
I wonder, are you aware of any DIY ways to make new gauge faces? I've seen a few techniques on the internet, like printing it on paper, but I'm not really conviced it will look nice or that it will last long before the colors fade
The biggest struggle to me is that some area must be transparent/transluscent while some other must remain opaque.

So far I haven't found any satisfying technique to make these, so any suggestion is welcomed. The best way I could think of so far was to purchase some sticker vinyl and cut it with my little laser cutter, but I'm opened to any other suggestion.
Did any of you guys rebuild your gages? How did you do ?

Thanks for your ideas!

[rpcraft]

If you have access to a way to print vinyl stick ons there is the way to make new gauge faces. The only thing you will need to figure out is if you can take the needles off and put them back on. You could also print half of a sticker and put them on just by moving the needles around and lining them up perfectly. I'm kind of looking into it for another application but the same practice either way.

[Maritime]

I used to know a guy who made them for Honda's I'll see if I can find his info. They're easy enough to get apart and Honda needles come off and go on fine if you are careful. The ODO and Trip windows you just cut out and the light actually comes up around the edge of the gauge to aluminate the numbers.

[Maritime]

These are from 4into1 for vintage Honda. https://www.ebay.ca/itm/182289144223 may be able to source a set for newer bikes.

[Forcerouge]

These are from 4into1 for vintage Honda. https://www.ebay.ca/itm/182289144223 may be able to source a set for newer bikes.

Nice find, but I probably can't get that here, plus 44 dollars sounds insanely expensive for such a small item!
My goal is to spend no more than 2 bucks....

I might have found a way to make it work:
Last week I had one of the lights of my bathroom who died. It's those kind of things that are supposedly ecologic (LED lights), but then you realize that nothing can be serviced and when a resistor dies on the main PCB you have to replace the entire thing. It's cheap so that's no problem, but it's kind of a waste of perfectyl good material since aside from the power supply everything's fine.
The eco responsible world of 2023 I guess.

Anyway,
This sheet of frosten translucid diffuser plastic caught my attention:
IMG_20230712_235735.jpg
I sticked a sheet of carbon fiber vinyl on it, then designed a simplified model of the gauge, just to make a quick and dirty test.
Finally I used my little laser engraver to burn parts of the vinyl.

IMG_20230712_235217.jpg

and a few moments later, tadaaaaaa:

IMG_20230713_001503.jpg

I think it is not too bad for a quick test. I might be able to do something nice using this technique!
Now I need to design the gauge with proper measurements and hopefully I'll come out with something interesting.

Someone earlier asked about the needle: in my experience it wasn't too difficult to remove with spoons/forks. But Yeah you need to pay attention not to break it. Hopefully I won't (I did remove it successfully before)

[Forcerouge]

Seems like it worked pretty well, I just need to make a little PCB to improve the lighting, great success!


IMG_20230715_224257.jpg

[6]

Looks absolutely amazing dude!
nice work

[Maritime]

Nice

[69Falcon]

Looks great!

[Yoshihns]

Nice Job