Technical First attempt at filling the roof on my 35 5W. Advice needed.

@Do it Over .....looking at many of the photos in above posts, it appears to me the perimeter of your roof opening is very uneven.....lumpy. Shaping a filler panel can only be much more difficult if you are trying fit an uneven, wavy surface. Unless, my eyes are deceiving me about that, you may benefit from smoothing the perimeter to the shape and contour that you want/need before spending more time on the filler panel.

Further, it appears to me you could be more aggressive in rolling the center of the panel to induce more crown. If you do that, you should not need so much ‘roll’ in the perimeter of the panel. You probably can salvage this panel, but if it keeps getting worse, starting with a new sheet may be a better use of time.

If you do take that approach, put medium pressure on the rollers, and make long strokes, end to end and side to side to get the crown you want first and, if need be, work the sides after the main part of the panel is what you want. Have you made any templates of cardboard or thin plywood with the shape of the crown you seek? That can help a lot to monitor your shaping progress in stead of relying solely on your eyeball.

Ray

 

Haven't made any templates. Yes the roof is wavy. The PO did some interesting work. Lots of Fugazy work was done. The odds of me fixing it all to get the roof smooth is approximately zero. This ain't that kinda car/build. To fix all the flaws is to cut it all apart and rebuild it. My goal is to repair as needed. Without a doubt there will a milk jug worth of lead on this roof between the chop and filler panel and I'm OK with that. This a leaning experiment for me and I'm trying not to let it drive me crazy. Will definitely brace the English wheel as soon as I can get to the steel house.

 

I have been following your build from the start. Admire your patience and "stick to it" attitude to overcome each step of the way. You are winning incrementally. You share all the attempts honestly to move forward and the frustrations along the way. I think a lot of us can empathize with you as we many of us struggle the same but we will eventually be successful. One fear is someone shows up and drops a donor roof off. That might not be pretty being so far along. :- )

 

Like Hnstray said, you need more crown in the middle of the panel. I think once you can add more "up" in the middle the puckers won't be so bad on the edges.

I also agree that the perimeter of the old roof should be straightened before trying to shape the new panel to it, and especially before trying to attach the new panel.

 

Did some more shrinking. Sides aren't too bad. I'll attempt shrinking the corners after I trim the front and back sides. I'm trying for minimum overlap. Need to trim about 2"off the rear and maybe 1/2" off the front. Any advice on a pattern to shrink the corners? Should I work a straight line raduis to the center or the air of the circumference?

 

Anyone can feel free to drop off a donor roof. PM me for my address . I'm all about the learnin but I want to graduate before I'm eligible for social security. I also accept new unopened beer donations. No recycled please. Will pay for .

 

Sooooooo
The shrinking disc is working!!!!
It’s shrinking and the puckers go away.
Let me ask this- Where you’re running the disc are there tracking marks There?

The metal when cooled will go away from the disc. Flip the roof skin and run the shr disc on what would be the ceiling.

 

In response to actions threatened against me by people unknown I have revisited my previous post and have since decided to do repairs/straighten these posted areas. I however will not apologize nor will I resign.

 

You sound surprised ? Lots of marks as my disc keeps picking up metal. I have to sand it off at intervals as it starts to skip/vibrate hard.

 

So after I brace up my English wheel will I be able to crown such a large panel as this without it going ?

It worked fine on 18 x 18 " 18ga. Should I drop down to 20ga ?

 

I'm curious to see what happens to the shape when its time to trim the panel.

 

Greetings to you King Ford!

Never tried the Coal, I just use a torch gently. What distortion you get the Wheel takes care of.

All the best - Tim

 

That picture shows a condition of different metal “arrangement”

It’s going to Change some depending on how much edge shrink (tight band around the outside) you cut off and how much that shrink is doing to hold up the middle crown. On the same token if the edges a little over stretched and cut it off I might quit fucking with you.

If you’re fitting to that line that’s where it will fit best. If that line contains previous lumps bumps and damage it’s not the best idea to fit to that stuff.

 

Gotcha. You can see inside my line is where the old filler panel was welded in. My plan was to avoid that area as it is kinda wavy and possibly thin. IMO the line also allows for the smoothest transition. I'll work on banging out some bumps tonight. Is it normal for the disc to pic up metal bits ? I recall it used to be pretty smooth leaving a nice finish on the panel, not this grinder look.

 

Bigger panels are harder to control, maneuver, track and project the movement. It’s easier to week the middle than the ends, there’s more weight pulling the ends down and you get that.

There’s no reason why you couldn’t make that roof panel out of 18” squares or 4 pieces.
I made some headlight buckets out of four pieces. There’s a tricky area where the quarter turns up and Blends to the roof and under the window. I think I got 6-7 pieces if you count the quarter and the roof. Can’t even tell you how many pieces are in the rear window.

 

I have a small disc, But I don’t use it much it’s going like 11,000 RPMs yeah? I use use my big disc and at 5000 rpm. Normally it doesn’t transfer metal, and does a better job of staying on the high spots because it’s too big to follow/ fall into the dips.

 

Maybe I'll experiment and cut panel #1 into three or four pieces and see what happens. Maybe it'll untaco some.

 

As 31Vicky said use the larger shrinking disk.

The cuts made for the top chop and the bumpy areas and general shape of the existing roof need to be worked... not by banging but finessed and metal finished, before spend more time on the insert, JMHO...

What happened to that panel you worked before this new one? It was looking pretty good... you may giving up too soon, you'll hit the sweet spot before you know it!

 

I have a roof from a 59 Chevy 2 door sedan, but it may not have enough crown. However, it would have to be picked up in Northern ILL.

I used a donor roof from a 55 Chevy sedan in my 34 Chevy coupe. The rear half of the 55 roof had just the right crown. It basically had to be trimmed and welded in.

 

I’m getting ready to part it out, and cut it up.... almost there!

 

I could use tbe ass end of it. Mine took a bit of a kick in the butt. I was gonna fix it but if I can afford a good panel , why not.

 

So I've been thinking about why I've got so much taco in my panel. The comments about stiffening up my english wheel suddenly clicked. All this time I've hardly been applying any pressure so I ran the panel through the wheel and cranked it down. Big surprise it added the crown I needed. The disappointment was that I discovered just how important the wheeling pattern is under big squeeze. Boy is it important. I ended up with too much crown, just right crown and a dent. Tomorrow I'll cut my last panel tomorrow making an outline of the hole in the roof and start wheeling that area under fair pressure and increasing until I get it to crown. May have to order more steel

 

Why did your son shave his head? lol

 

You really should have a buck or some sort of templates to guide you. Without a guide to tell you where you are high and low it is almost impossible to know where the panel actually needs adjusting and you are just guessing and not necessarily fixing what is wrong.

 

To make a buck I'd have to do it off my eye won't I? I get what you're saying and don't disagree but I bet most guys building in their garages in the 50's -60's didn't use a buck either.

 

I would guess 0 guys in the 50's and 60's had an english wheel in their garage so they wouldn't need one. Affordable english wheels are a very recent phenomenon. They would have gone to the junk yard, found a donor roof and cut to size.

Personally I would use a couple of thin strips of metal (or a long metal ruler) that span the opening and adjust the arc at different points across the roof, make cardboard templates from those at a bunch of different spots in both directions. That would at least give you a reference, right now you have nothing to gauge where things need to be. Here is a video on making templates. You obviously wouldn't have the whole panel to work with hence the strips of metal.

 

thats a great builder where I live

 

Some places that would be considered damn near finished.


Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

I’m going to start a thread on it. I don’t want to hijack this one.

 

I've watched most every one of Wrays videos. I hope to take his class when I retire in a few years. If there was still a junkyard left in NYC you could bet I'd be there cuttin some roof off but there ain't . This roof has been stretched 4" (unevenly) nothing is actually simetrical. Not the door frames, doors or windows. Once again I agree with you. I did make some wooden roof ribs the way you described. It helped some.