Goal: Cut the Lexus 'L' into the back of my car, add a piece of glass or acrylic or the like behind it, light it up with white LEDs wired to my license plate light.
Also, perhaps make some kind of interrupt circuit connected to a red LED wired to my brake lights so that the logo will be a 3rd brake light.
I'm not sure how the interrupt will work, but one thing at a time.
Getting the logo off was surprisingly simple and fast. I used some fishing line, wound it around the logo and pulled. It came off in under a minute...makes me wonder that people aren't stealing them for sale on Ebay.
Second, I tried figuring a way to align the logo for when I'm ready to trace it onto the car.
The idea of vinyl popped into my head. That stuff doesn't come off unless you want it to. For $15 I got a custom vinyl from a local shop and done from a scan of the logo.
I cut some holes so that I could align the stencil correctly.
Now, you might be able to tell that the logo is a bit high. In the past, when I've have things done "good" and tried to make them "best", they ended up "worst". I didn't want to worry about tearing the vinyl and besides that, it's aligned pretty well horizontally.
The tool I'm using to remove the majority of the material is called a Nibbler tool. For $15 at Radioshak, this thing is BEAST! It makes smooth cuts and does it like the metal's butter.
I got some clear electrical tape to help protect the vinyl and applied it to both the tool and the vinyl.
I'll be using a Dremel tool and a hand file as well to do this job.
Of course, I won't be able to do the whole logo or else the insides of it will be off of the car and I will end up with an oval hole. Thankfully, the Lexus logo is designed with those connecting pieces.
This'll leave me with two (surprisingly) flimsy pieces of metal so I'll have to be careful working on this until I'm ready to put the glass behind it.
This project is going to take alot of patience to get it right. If it doesn't come out smooth looking it'll just look like crap in the end. Worse-case scenario, I can just put the logo back on. But, I'm hoping this'll come out looking near-stock. So far this project is mostly intuition and resourcefulness..like any other project I suppose lol.
By the way, some people simply put LEDs behind the emblem, but it was too easy to me.
ex:
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http://p.lefux.com/61/20110523/A25450000Z/InsetImage/Car-LED-Light-Badge-Logo-Emblem-Mark-for-Mitsubishi-Lancer-EX-Lioncel_2.jpg
Thanks for looking! I'll update as I go!
P.S. I'll be getting the car painted black after a while! So it'll look better then.