Isetta - Knobs

These are the original dimmer, shift, and directional knobs that are still on my red Isetta. When I was disassembling my white Isetta, my plan was to just clean the grime of the knobs and leave the original patina that the ivory had developed over fifty years. The only problem with that plan was when I unscrewed the knobs, the threads turned to dust, and the shifter knob crumbled into several pieces. I thought about various ways of rescuing the original knobs, but in the end decided to just make new ones.

The first step was to make a jig to hold the knob material through the turning process. The first photo shows facing a piece of delrin on the metal lathe that will become the turning jig. The material I chose to turn the knobs out of is ivory colored Corian. The second photo shows the turning jig mounted on the wood lathe with a Corian blank threaded on.

Since I went through all the trouble of making jigs and templates for these, I've made a few extra sets. If anybody is in need of a quality set of knobs for their Isetta, my email address in in the sidebar menu.