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Cutting and Fitting Chopped Garnish mouldings.

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by choprods, May 9, 2013.

  1. This is my entry in the Tech Week this time:
    I see threads here all the time where a guy has bought a "chopped" ride or even chopped it himself,and lo and behold-two F'n years later he is still driving with the garnish uncut on the workbench!!:D
    This not a manned mission to Mars fellas-It is really quite easy if approached in the right way.
    To preface this I hate to say,this BUT-
    I wish you would take this as my personal way and advice and not tell us how you will do it better-:eek:
    just remember you can start your own thread as easily somewhere else and I personally wish you would......:rolleyes:

    to start::

    I see a lot of time people making much more work of a job than it really is...
    This is the case on this subject.

    We start with a Merc[5" CHOP]amd show the comparo of the chopped door and uncut garnish.....
    looks like a big job Right?

    Not really, mark the garnish where you cut the door approximately and cut it in peices....

    The best plan here is to not have to use two sets of garnish as that is getting wasteful and impossible to find as well.

    I usually plot the marks out where the front upper of each side of garnish can be used on the opposite door by flipping it side to side and therefore eliminating the need for a filler section...
    That is a step in the direction of eliminating an extra hour or two work as well....Here are first pics....
    PLEASE NOTE-THE SECTION OF GARNISH WITH X'S MARKED=THESE ARE THE PART THAT IS SWAPPED SIDE FOR SIDE AS i SAY ABOVE....
     

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    Last edited: May 9, 2013
  2. Next we cut both sets of door garnish at same exact marked locations....
    this allows you the luxury of having the 5" of extra length[chop amount] that can be used at the top to "lengthen" effectively your other garnish.

    IF YA NOTICE THE SAME METHOD APPLIES TO DOOR AS WELL=NO "CHUNKS ADDED TO LENGTHEN DOOR TOPS....

    I show another tip here= tape the peices in place on door and tack them a bit on the door to start...
    then place on a flat surface to help fixture the garnish for flatness sake...and finish your welds.

    a few extra tacks on the back side are good- insuring they will stay together a long time,after flush grinding outer welds....

    IMPORTANT NOTE:
    do not size/ fit the garnish so tight that it will not move up and down a bit.... this will allow the best fit of garnish on doors after door upholstery is added....dont ask how I knew that.
    About 3/8 to 1/2" is acceptable there.
     

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    Last edited: May 9, 2013
  3. After the door garnish is satisfactorily cut and filtted we move on to the quarter ones....
    here you immediately see the rear corner is scarily too large usually whole thing will need to be shortened in all directions at once to refit....

    As above you cut it apart at approximately the same areas of body' cuts-then cut and fit =ON=the car and even tacking it together ON the car....
    then you will finish on the table as described above.

    It usually is the case that the rear corner wil need to be fabbed up custom fit for your chop....
    I used a peice of 18 ga Cold roll sheet/some snips and cut a triangular chunk to accomplish that.

    You can use a ball end hammer to hammerform in the corner as needed...
    tacking it at the inside corners first and continue hammerforming into the shape desired....
     

    Attached Files:

  4. Johnboy34
    Joined: Jul 12, 2011
    Posts: 1,588

    Johnboy34
    Member
    from Seattle,Wa

    Nice! Thanks for showing that. I'm reading and learning all I can to get my nerve up:eek: to chop my 34.
     

  5. Well the worst is over and the whole =two= of the hardest to cut garnish's mysterys are solved!
    As shown the rear corner of quarter garnish is actually made to fit it's new size with added metal section....

    I used a short length of large acetylene weld rod to weld on it outer edge for shape and ease of finish grinding...

    I usually do a series of weld beads as a filler to accomplish the now missing character line visible in the last pic of the corners.....careful grinding can end you up with a decent looking new shaped corner here.
    I do all spot welds on the butt seams as this stuff is really crappy steel ......

    a comparison pic is included to see the contrast in size and shape that is needed here......[These were converted to stationary glasses]
    Total elapsed time for these two=2-1/2 hours....

    so ya see-it is not necessary to leave the garnish off your chopped ride at all-just step it up and cut em to fit man!!

    the windshield garnish is just a straight butt together joint, easily done and not shown as a result,
    the rear glass on a Merc is just trimmed out with the gasket meeting the headliner and no garnish is used there at all.

    I hope someone can gain some insight here and good luck with your chopped top car,now with windows installed completely!!:)
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: May 10, 2013

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