Hey gang!
I'm not sure if anyone is as dopey about original parts as I am, but I just wanted to share with you some magic I worked on my 1973 Chally build sheet. I was tearing apart the interior the other day and I was pretty shocked to find my build sheet was still tucked into the springs of the back seat. After almost 40 years, it was pretty dry and brittle, but I managed to get it out with only a few booboos. I snapped a picture of what it first looked like, once I put everything back to where it should've been:
Next, I laid it on the ironing board, wet some printer paper, and sandwiched the build sheet between them. My goal was to get some moisture back into the paper, and nothing works better than steam (um, apparently). I grabbed the iron and ironed the printer paper until it was just barely damp. I got two new sheets, soaked them in water, and repeated this two more times. Now that the build sheet didn't resemble something found in an Egyptian tomb, I threw it on the scanner and moved it into Photoshop:
Now the hard part! Spending far too much time in Photoshop, I cropped, copied, cloned, and processed my way to this:
Now, it's not perfect, but after several hours, my eyes were crossing and it was much better than when I started. Maybe later I'll touch it up some more. If anyone is looking to do a little Photoshopping with their own build sheet, it's kind of a pain, but I think it's worth it. I spent a lot of time with Google Images trying to find other sheets out there and used a few to figure out what went in the blank spots of my sheet. For those of you who are handy in Photoshop and need a good jumping off point, here is a hi-res version of mine:
http:www.1980studios.com/chally/processed_hires.jpg (5101x6601 (40MB))
-Justin
