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Project: GNX 548

J

jodonnell

Weaksauce
Joined
Sep 15, 2004
Messages
73
I've done two smaller case mods before (the requiste blue CCFL & Dremel experiment and later something a little more personal with a naval themed casemod. Now I'd like to do something a little bit beyond simple dremeling a square window and maybe painting. This time, I want to try my hand at the next level up by doing some custom bodywork and molding using foam and fiberglass. The main inspiration for this mod comes from bonzanego's incredible "Satan's Deuce" . After I saw that, I knew I wanted to do an automotive casemod of my own. But how to really make it unusual or personal? Well, I'm a diehard Buick fan; and it's generally accepted that The Greatest Buick Ever Built was the 1987 GNX, a limited production run on the last year of the Grand National; a large turbocharged "personal luxury coupe." Only 547 of these beasts were ever made, so I thought I'd make a 548th in the form of a new PC; hopefully, one that can carry on the Buick tradition of "Going fast in class."

Here's some concept art and 3D mock-ups of the case. The case will actually be painted black with auto paint and polished to a shine as in Linear's guide. It's in white here for visibility purposes. The black areas will be windows.

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The case is an Antec Super Lanboy. I'm going to get a second solid side panel for the right side of the case by trading my windowed panel for a friend's solid panel. The window cut outs will be the Buick trishield emblem and nameplate on the right, with the GNX emblem on the left. Above that are mock-ups of the exhaust louvers that were defining features of the GNX. I'd like to cut the vent open so air can actually exhaust from them, but I'll see how that works. They will be made from styrofoam and then cast in either fiberglass or Bondo. On top of the case is a recreation of the GNX hood, with the bulge the Grand Nationals were known for. The SLB door will be cut out, and aluminum or plastic slats will be painted black and epoxied in to recreate the waterfall grill common on Buicks of that time. In reality the door actually bulges forward a little bit, but for simplicities sake the mock up is flat-faced. The door will bulge on the actual version.

Tommorow I hope to start the dremeling and perhaps some basic foam sculpting; if I'm lucky I might get to start priming and painting Sunday. This project has a due date of September 5 or so, since I leave for college around the 10th. I know I can't compete with some of the real hardcore modders here, but hopefully this will turn out halfway respectable and lead me on to another project in the future :)
 
God I love the grand nationals. Looks like you got your work cut out for ya.
 
Can't wait to see how this one turns out.

I have much love for my turbo cousins.


Tyler
'92 Typhoon #1685
 
SpangeMonkee said:
I always thought that the GNX looked too much like a Monte Carlo.
Click to expand...

Might be the fact they are built on the same g-body platform.

I liked when people mistook my T-Type for a Monte, made beating them all the more fun.
 
all this talking.....sigh, I miss my Grand Prix

The dash light pods were the exact size for VDO gauges (or gages for you GM people)
 
A front page nod, my day is made :)

Of course now people will actually expect something ridiculous like progress, guess I better get crackin' :p

I wasn't able to get my second sidepanel (yet, but hopefully this week) so I decided to hold off on painting for now - I'd like to paint everything at once, if possible. It'll just make it easier on me if all the pieces are on the same 'step.' I went ahead and Dremel'd out the right side panel, using a newly bought flex shaft attachment (very handy for complex cuts like these, well worth the $25!)

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It still needs to undergo filing, so far I've just done some 150 grit deburring. It still needs a little more smoothing out, but that won't be too hard. I also cut out the 'holes' in the 'B', which will be adhered to the Lexan in some fashion. Overall though, I'm pleased with the shape. I like case windows a lot, but too many cases use the same boring old space-maximizing rectangles. Only about 40% of the interior of a case is interesting to look at, so it would be better to draw interest by making an interesting window shape (or engraving) rather than going for as much window space as possible. In my opinion, anyhow. :)
 
(Sorry for the double post, I got an image limit error)

I also started work on the foam mold for the top. I learned very quickly that shaping things in Styrofoam is much harder than pulling vertices in Lightwave! I wish I had a hot wire, but alas, that is not so. I did the cuts with an electric knife, which worked out better than I thought - I was afraid the vibration would make messy cuts, but it cut pretty straight. Unfortunately I won't be able to get the crisp angles I would really like, but I can get a fair approximation of the shape. The surface is kind of rough, and it might undergo more smoothing. However, I think that after I cover it with speaker grill cloth (where would I buy that?) and fiberglass over it, some of those problems will be taken care of on their own.

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bgates2b, I'd love to get the text on the bulge, but I'm afraid that detail is a little too fine for what I'm capable of. For perspective, the bulge is only about 1/2" thick at any given point. I don't really have mad modder skills like a lot of folks on this forum and on places like Bit-tech, but I wouldn't rule it out for the future perhaps :)

Anyhow, thanks all for the positive words. Hopefully once the weekend rolls around I'll have some more to show - this is my last week of work - I'll have two free weeks until I fly back to Savannah for college, so after this week I'll have nigh-unlimited work time on my project :)
 
Nice, sweet case. I wanted to do a Corvette case, but my motivation dropped.

Vette
 
neat, but the CAD design looks a bit blocky... very streight edges and sharp angels... maybe i'm looking at it wrong or something...
 
I actually wanted to do that initially, for the left (mobo) side panel. However, I wanted to incorporate the GNX emblem as well, and in my concept sketches I wasn't happy with how they worked together. I will probably put it on the front of the 'toolbox' in the front panel, but that's all I can think of for now. Perhaps I should put the GNX emblem just on the front door/toolbox and move the TB logo to the left side panel. You are correct though, I really want to incorporate the Turbo Buick logo somewhere :)
 
looking good man, I like the half grill in the rendering. I just went to a car show a few weeks ago with my grandfather and saw a nice gnx.
the window looks great too, hand cutting lettering is really tough to do I applaude your tenacity.
 
i must be missing something. i just looked up the car, and this design is far more ridged than it is. it's waaay too block looking for my taste. oh well. maybe i'll like it after it's done...
 
Hmm, I don't know Everfalling. It's a 1987 car, they are all pretty blocky. Granted, some of my edges here look crisper than they did on the original car, but that will get smoothed over a little post-fiberglass. Maybe you looked up the 2001 Regal GNX concept? That would certainly look much blockier than the 1987 model.

In any case, I'm considering whether the right panel should be the GNX emblem or the Turbo Buick emblem. In 3D, they look thusly:

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I'm kind of leaning towards the GNX logo since it has less coverage (being that this is the mobo backpanel side, so there isn't much to see. I'm curious as to what anyone else thinks though.

I also spent today re-doing the hood mock-up, this time with cardboard.

aal.jpg


I wasn't fully satisfied with the styrofoam results, so I thought I might get more accuracy with cardboard, and it turns out that is the case. Foam would probably be better for rounded parts, or for people with access to a hot wire cutter. Being that neither applies to me, I think cardboard as the mold for the fiberglass cloth is the best bet. My biggest concern at this point is if fiberglass will work well on the louvers, since they are small and have lots of complex angles. They shouldn't be too hard to make in cardboard, but I wonder how the fiberglass cloth will lay on it. I wonder if maybe I should buy some of that paint-on stuff instead (the Bondo like fiberglass, with no cloth.) In any case, I hope to start painting by Sunday or Monday, and I'll probably be fiberglassing concurrently with it. So hopefully now I'll start making actual progress :)
 
Just a small update. GNX mobo-side window cut, and the front door was been cut out too (not shown since it's not that neat to look at.) Tommorow hopefully begins the painting/fiberglassing segment of the project.

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Haven't updated this in a while, but that's not because I haven't been working! This week was spent painting, sanding, fiberglassing, making cardboard models...lots of stuff! The top of the case as well as the grille door are finished. Unfortunately I ran out of sunlight today so I wasn't able to finish the final sanding/waxing on the side panels, but those will be done tommorow.

Door closed

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Door open - Turbo Buick!

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The grille door itself - made from 25 or so slats of Lexan, jigsaw cut to about 1/2" wide, and painted with black plastic-formula paint. I fit the slats in, hot glued them into place, and then used Gorilla glue for final adhesion (since hot glue is not strong enough, but Gorilla glue takes three to four hours to set. The hot glue held them in place while the Gorilla glue dryed to make the bond permanent.) Then I repainted it black to cover up the Gorilla glue foam.

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The top of the case, painted, clearcoated, sanded, rubbed, and waxed to high gloss. A huge amount of work, but the results are very satisfying!

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