Projects fixing a smashed 31 model A pickup cab.

Ok Charlie, get to work!

 

I will show him that Mark.

 

this afternoon Charlie traced out the old cab support on the "tree". I cut it out on the bandsaw and finished it with the belt sander. Charlie drilled the holes and morticed for the nuts and washers. we bolted it to the cab to check the fit.

 

this shot is looking across the back of the cab with the window reveals lined up. the arrow points to the stretched area I need to shrink more.

 

That a just twist of fate for that nasty ole Truckcrusher...fantastic rework from both you and your friends TB and of course Snooky...

 

this photo shows the series of dime size spots I heated red hot and then let cool. I was able to reduce it down to what is shown in the previous post.
should I keep going? or cut, relieve and weld?

 

is this a job for a shrinking disc??

 

good thought, I don't know I never used one.

 

I think it is!

 

I have never used one either, if you try, I am sure you will let us know what you think of it.

 

My little bro is good with a shrinking disc, but I couldn't get the hang of it. I'm a heat, tap, quench type of shrinker. I would keep on shrinking like you are instead of cutting and removing metal. Use a surgical method as a last effort.

 

I like the shrink disc. At first I didn't think I knew how to use one either. Proved myself wrong. Much easier now that the Torch and quench system I was used to. The disc makes a little Hot spot just like the torch. Using air to kool is better than water. Less mess on the floor. I'm not going back.

 

thanks about the air!

 

Just a thought on the wood, are you worried about the wood shrinking because it was not kiln dried. I had a friend build a table out of no dried wood, and it sounded like a gun going off when it finally pulled itself apart.

I like seeing the way metal gets worked back to straight, keep up the good work.

Tony

 

That is what I was thinking! That wood will move if that was a live tree.

 

I d be more concerned about the timber deciding it was going to be hockey stick shape as it dries.it will pull the metal with it.thats why you should season the timber before you use It even then it will change shape as you rip it .try to use a piece with straight grain

 

pretty sure that tree FELL on the truck-at least a branch-prob pretty dry...

 

don't know how much woodworking experience you have pat?when did the tree fall down?

 

hey pat you be better off by far usung seasoned timber,using a piece with straight grain..read up on it it not that difficult storage is the critical isue

 

While I'm not an environmentalist or a tree hugger of any kind I feel somewhat sad when I see a picture like this.
The size of those old growth trees was impressive and they grew over the course of hundreds or thousands of years.

It's very sad to know that virtually all of them are gone and that unless human population goes away or drastically decreases that they will never exist again.

I think it points to a certain human arrogance to just go ahead and exploit something like they did to the old growth forests and many other things in our world.

Development and progress yes but...

 

I agree if you have to cut down a tree for whatever reason the least you can do is plant another two it wont break the bank..i planted a holly last year another to transplant this year and another two holly the birds planted im protecting until they are strong enough to fend for themselves.they are over 2ft and the cycle of renewal goes on.

 

I can understand what you are saying, but there isn't a Redwood Desert in California. For the sake of discussion, let's say that photo is of the very first one cut down by man, then what did they do? Cut it into 20 foot long sections, that is still a huge chunk to move. Bob

 

There are very few stands of redwoods left here. They can only grow under very exacting conditions.

Those conditions are unlikely to continue.

 

I got them there redwoods. Second growth though, only about 100 years old



And day 3 of that damn lumberjack song.

 

that tree fell on the truck over 10 years ago [I have been told] they cut it up not long after and stacked it. It is "seasoned" but not dried [different] because it was out in the weather. I have it cut and "stickered" . the piece we cut will shrink but it is not a trapped piece, it will not shrink in length just width. worse case we will have to tighten the bolts up. we will not get to the top wood till summer, we guess, and by then the rest will be dry/dryer.
my plan was to get angles made to join the top/cowl, back together to get our dimensions. Charlie has to still build the chassis, by the time the pre-build is done the wood will be stable.

 

ohhh, and as far as I see from the picture of the red wood cut down, there is no proof that it was cut down in the photo. cut up yes, cut DOWN no. so rest easy tonight, the same mother that knocked the tree on this pickup probably knocked the red wood down.

 

Maybe, and they may have dug up the stump and removed it for a better photo.

 

Mark Twain Tree

If this is clogging up the thread let me know an I'll delete it.

When "Mark Twain" was cut down in 1891, the giant Sequoia was 1,341 years old and measured 331 ft (100.9 m) high and 90 ft (27.4 m) in circumference at the base. Today a stump is all that remains of the once thriving tree that might have survived another thousand years (left). The ancient tree relic is located in the Big Stump Grove of what is now the Kings Canyon National Park in Fresno and Tulare Counties along with other curiosities of the Sequoia lumbering days including a 150 year old pile of sawdust. Some cross sections of the felled Mark Twain Tree were cut for display purposes and the rest of the tree was milled for grape stakes, fence posts and shingles by the Kings River Lumber Company.
Mark Twain had the misfortune of growing in an area in the high Sierra Nevada mountains called Millwood that was purchased by two lumber barons, Hiram T. Smith and Austin D. Moore, who took possession the 30,000 acres of Sequoia forests in 1888 and founded the Kings River Lumber Company. By 1905 the company had laid waste to some 8,000 giant Sequoias, all over 2,000 years old. Because of the huge size and weight of Mark Twain, his killing by company loggers took eight days. An engraving shows two Because the Mark Twain Tree was of magnificent symmetrical proportions, "one of the most perfect trees in the grove," he was selected to provide a cross section for display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York (left). The curator marked on its annual rings selected events of human history. See: Life History. Its birth in 550 AD made Mark Twain a contemporary of Justinian, Emperor of the Roman Empire. "With these historic contrasts before us," wrote a reporter in the New York Times (12 January 1908), "We can begin to picture in our imagination the span of life that has been enjoyed by this hardy forest Methuselahmen after their labour, on the stump just before the tree came crashing down (right). The bed of branches built to prevent its breakage on impact is seen below the tree.
While the the largest, 16 ft in diameter basal cross section of Mark Twain ended up at the American Museum of Natural History, a higher second section was sent to London for display at its Natural History Museum which opened in 1881. There it remains today, an iconic display on the second floor of the grand central hall (right). Conceived as a "cathedral of nature," the museum is emblematic of European civilization at the turn of the century. While the rare ancient big tree groves, the real cathedrals of nature, were being exterminated by Euroamericans for wood products, relics of needlessly slaughtered trees were displayed as trophies of manliness and of the triumph of human hegemony. Tragically, this irony continues to decimate big trees today.

http://www.cathedralgrove.eu/text/05-Pictures-Politics-4.htm

 

Ted, Is there any chance you can do a ring count to see if the tree dated back to 1910? Bob

 

I will have to go back and look through the pile for the trunk.........not a bad idea......it's age will add to the story.