Projects What!!? another 27 on 32 chassis!??. Scratch build body.

Bloody lovely, that

 

Damn Dave - that's beautiful. Wish I could afford to bring the Tourer tub to you!

 

Cheers Bob and Phil.

It was a bit dark last night when I took the photo above so I took another one today in the daylight...



and here is a photo of the inside of the panel that shows the weld and the flanges.



David

 

lovely work

 

Wait, wait, wait! Can you go into a little more of "how-to"? Like how you made the bead around the wheel well opening? I imagine you first bent a ninty, then made a couple progressive passes with the Pullmax? No pre-stretch on the bead? Looks like it stayed really flat, it didn't sink in at all without the pre-stretch? Beautiful work!

 

That's how I did it. I did get a little distortion at the back of the panel, a bit of a pain so I am going to try a different way for the other side. I am thinking of making some more of these bodies if I can work out how to do it efficiently and people are prepared to pay a reasonable amount fro them. We will see...

David

 

Yeah thats what I figured. I always have this debate with people about stiching and firing away at the whole panel. Do the whole thing and your applying heat to it all rather than one spot and creating lows and highs all over the place, as well as strong and weak spots wich will either hold or cause things to go even more hay wire. Either way great work man.

Cheers

 

I got into this stuff I was a teenager and I learned bodywork from American Hot Rod magazines. I was already a qualified welder but I learned hammer welding from the Mags. Later I managed to go to college and study vehicle restoration gaining a City & Guilds diploma. (A full time two year course) that is where I learned this method of welding. It is the traditional coachbuilding method. I have worked on coach built cars from the twenties and found this is the welding technique used to build the bodies back then. With this method distortion is kept to a minimum and the welds are easily dressed out. Hammer welding works well but is much slower. I have taught this method to many people in my role as a lecturer at Colchester Institute for many years (part time). I recently taught a class and one guy who had never done any gas welding before did a perfect weld inside one hour!. Most people I have taught have been able to get good results with about six hours of practice. I show a little of the technique on my youtube footage.

David

 

Thanks so much for taking the time to post these David. It is very interesting and inspiring to see a truely skilled craftsman do his thing.

 

Truly an art form....subscribed

 

Glad you find it interesting. Should get the rest of the donor car stripped tomorrow. Saturday I will start on the other side rear quarter, I will post more photos soon.

David

 

I just saw this for the first time this morning. I read the whole thing and will subscribe.
Thanks for taking the time to document the whole build. It is very inspiring!
I would love to see a detailed description of the reshaping of the frame kickup! Will you show this here or will it only be available on one of your videos?
David, thanks for contributing to the resurgence of skilled metal shaping!

~Alden

 

Wow that is an amazing story man. I would imagine you would get a similar result if using a tig welder and applying the same technique? Where are yo located? Would it be possible to stop by for a chat?

 

inspiring

 

Hi Alden, I have filmed the re-shaping of the chassis rail, its quite an involved process so well worth showing on a DVD with lots of other information on chassis building and restoring. I am doing lots of filming and will be putting a DVD together asap, editing a lot of footage to make an informative DVD without lots of dross is a time consuming thing so it will be a while yet.

David

 

It is possible to do this with a tig and I show the process with tig on the DVD. I prefer gas welding for lots of reasons though.

I am near Harwich in Essex. out of interest this is the place that the Mayflower sailed from to take the first pilgrims to America. If you are near you can pop in just PM me and I will give you details.

David

 

Hi Paul, thank you. I am glad you find it interesting.

David

 

Many times when I have been doing the skip around method promoted so widely, I have unconsciously run a longer bead, (caught in the moment I suppose). All has been well with the joint, but I always stop because I am supposed to. I am definitely going to try this method. I have your vid, and I realized I didn't really catch this there when I first saw it. I do not doubt that it works for you, I hope I can make it work for me.

Am I correct in that from your vid, it looked like your tacks average 6" (150mm) or so apart?

Thanks for all your posts on this thread.

Mark

 

David
Great thread. Can you post a picture of the tooling you used in the Pullmax please. I am thinking of trying to do a similar thing in fabbing up a replacement 1/4 for an A sports coupe. Sounds like I'll have to save up for another DVD for the shelf.
Thanks
Michael

 

Hi Mark, I don't know what you were watching but I tack about every 15mm (3/4 of an inch) at most. I even say it and it is written on the screen!. I think you should watch the DVD again when you are awake LOL.

David

 

Hi Michael, I will take a photo when I get a chance and put it up. I think you might like the DVD if you are interested in this stuff there is a lot of info on it.

David

 

I'll look forward to hearing from you when it is released. I had a look through my magazines last night, and the article mentioned is in the September 1958 issue. I don't have a scanner, so can't help by posting the article.
Michael

 

Awesome work David. I'm watching this closely as I want to build a T after my Chevy.

The article Michael mentioned above.

 

Hats off to you sir!

 

Thanks for scanning those Jimmy! That's a kickass car!

 

Awesome, thanks mate! I'll make an appearance after new years some time for sure.

 

JimmyB, thanks for posting the article. I like the car but it has a bit too much bling for my tastes. I will be using the spoke wheels from my donor car too. The thing I notice about this car is that the driver sits 'in' the car and does not stick out too far. That is important to me.

Its a great car though.

David

 

A dumbarse question Dave, are you channelling the body a tiny bit over the frame?

 

Hi Bob, I intend to build it as a hiboy, not channeled.

I spent Saturday experimenting to see if there was any way to pre-stretch the swage (bead) on the rear quarter but I got nowhere with it so I am just going to do it the same as the first side.
It wasn't too bad just had to spend some time dressing the panel.

David

 

Channeled over a '32 frame would be, well...... Dave you have the wheel opening flange bent in so that side is locked in. The bead has to be stretched. Remember my beading die? http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=521585
If you set your pullmax die you are using with a front edge you will get very little distortion.