Recent Car-related Creations

This year I have been adding to my Automobilia page pretty much weekly.  I have backed off of purchasing new items so that I can focus on catching up on the backlog of unfinished ornaments accumulated in my shop.  One of the most recent items is a C1 Corvette headlamp bezel (door is the technical term) that I was able to obtain on eBay, so that I could fulfill my concept of placing tandem clock and thermometer in the headlight openings..  I hope a Corvette aficionado will find this attractive.

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Another exciting (for me) addition to my collection is a 1956 Chevrolet hood ornament.  I had completed one previously, but I made the mistake of taking it to a craft fair and it sold.  I now know not to display something at a fair that I do not want to sell.  On the positive side, I like this display even better than the first.

I mounted this eagle/plane hood ornament on carved walnut.  There was a split in the walnut board, so I filled it with epoxy and turquois rock-chips.  The '55 and '56 Chevy hood ornaments were similar, but the '56 was larger with a shorter tail.

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I had sold a Jaguar Leaping Cat hood ornament last fall, so when I came across another on eBay I bid and won it.  The previous one was from the 1960s; this one is from the new millennium, but still looks virtually identical.  We'll see how popular it is this fall at the craft shows.  Another recently completed hood ornament was an early '50s Studebaker torpedo style ornament.  I had acquired a similar Studebaker ornament without the ring a couple years ago.  This one completes that style Stude ornament.  (see my Automobilia section near the bottom of the left column under the Studebaker heading)

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This spring at the Texas Motor Speedway's Good Guys Meet I had the opportunity to purchase several good condition vintage ornaments, including a British Morris Minor one.  Some weeks later I came across another type of Morris ornament on eBay and was able to grab it.  I have now mounted both of them.  I expect that some Morris fan will be thrilled to find them.

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Sometime last year I obtained two vintage GMC truck emblems from the 1940s and '50s.  It took quite a while to decide how to mount them.  I recently completed them with a pen-holder attached to each.

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I want to mention an old favorite of mine: A 1950 Ford ornament with a Lucite fin. (Lucite was a brand name for acrylic - a new product on the market following WWII.  It replaced the pre-war Bakelite in many products)  Ford used a clear Lucite fin on their 1949 & '50 cars. Although the fin was clear, it was not illuminated.  I have done several hood ornament mountings of these two years, but in previous cases I reproduced the fin in wood or petrified wood.  I was finally able to obtain one with an original, surviving Lucite fin so that I could provide illumination for it.  In the following gallery I show this recent ornament as I received it with corrosion and a painted fin, then cleaned and mounted and finally with LED illumination.

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And finally, this spring at the TX Motor Speedway event I was able to acquire an early 1930s Chevrolet eagle radiator ornament.  The catch was that the beak was broken off.  I was able to re-sculpt it with metal-impregnated epoxy into a passable snout, just a little longer than the original.  It also lacked a radiator cap, so I turned a wood base to provide the general effect of a radiator cap.  This is a relatively rare and costly ornament, so I was very pleased to find a damaged one that I could restore.

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There are more photos of these and other creations under the Automobilia tab above.  My car-related stuff is organized into three vertical columns: Hood Ornaments (left), Clocks (middle) and Emblems (right).  Within each column they are organized alphabetically by make from A to Z (top to bottom) and numerically by year within each make, starting with the earliest at the top.  You are welcome to browse as you have occasion.  Any comments you wish to leave on this website are welcome.  Thanks for looking.