If you want one like it, you gotta sit behind the editor’s desk!
Days like today are what make this job cool. I opened up my daily stack of mail, and among the letters was a padded envelope with a very cool gift inside. In appreciation for some stories we ran in PHR this past year, Dart Machinery sent me a limited edition piece of industrial art: this small-scale billet aluminum model of a big-block Chevy cylinder head and valve cover. We often get little chachkies like this, but they’re usually mail-order things like ink pens, flashlights, and so forth. This was actually machined at Dart on their CNC production machinery. What makes it cool is that it really shows off their CNC programming ability and attention to detail—a nice way to make us editorial types really aware of their capabilities.
You can’t tell from this picture, but the cylinder deck side is equally detailed. (Check out the full-sized small-block Chevy piston for a size reference). The bottom has itsy-bitsy combustion chambers, valve pockets, and pushrod hole reliefs. If the thing wasn’t so small, the camera could’ve picked up more detail. I don’t know if these things are for sale or not (it’s possible Dart gives them away to good customers though), but if you want to try buying one, it’s worth calling them at 248-362-2027.