Over the years, the intense Florida sun destroyed the dashboard of the h.e.a.r.t. pickup truck. The plastic had become so brittle and broken that you could actually see the engine while sitting in the driver’s seat. At h.e.a.r.t., we believe in recycling and upcycling and bicycling (attempt at a joke??), so we used things like plastic plates, garbage and things that you would most likely throw away to give support to the new dashboard. It looked incredibly silly during the process, but it was cheap and it worked to provide a foundation to make the new dash look great! I think most will be quite impressed with what some bondo, sand paper and spray paint can do when you put it in the right hands.
There is a gentleman named Sam who volunteers at h.e.a.r.t. regularly and I’ve had the privilege of working with him. He has such a vast amount of knowledge and experience and I’ve learned so much from him. Sam didn’t want to just get the job done, he wanted it to look great too.
With the same creativity God uses to make beautiful things with the garbage of our world and lives, we can also do the same. You can (quite inexpensively) make things new on the foundation of old, you can make things beautiful on ugly, hurtful, and painful experiences in Christ, and that can pour over into the things we make with our hands. So go make things beautiful and new.
We started by reinforcing the inside with anything durable. As you can see an old plate and some duct tape was used.
After that a layer of cardboard was used to give a more durable canvas and less holes to lay down our first layer of newspaper and bondo.
With each layer of bondo we would scrape down and sand off any extra (after it dried some) so that way it would be even and smooth. After really shaping the dashboard and smoothing it out we were able to get it solid from layers and layers of bondo. Bondo can dry rather quickly, so being ready is important.
After sanding and scraping and sanding and scraping and sanding and sanding we taped newspaper up to put on a coat of primer.
Once dry, we added a coat of black paint,
then a coat of black grey texture paint.
The final outcome!
Post by Michael McDaniel