T Bucket Bodies Question "Who To Use"

Louvers got any pics to show what you mean about the wraping around the top?

 

Look at Don's stuff again. His is much prettier than I have ever turned out. By wrapping the top I mean the piece that is running just below the top edge of the body all the way around.

 

Yeah I have those pics saved I think...but will make sure I did save them and will look at them again.

I wonder how I could make the wood stand out on its on as the interior?

I'm going to later on start a thread on color choices of buckets. I was thinking black body and red interior.But I've been thinking of green (for hunter green or the green from the 40s-50s) with a red interior.

I'm planning it all out as I go writing down things and when I get started I will have it all laid out and ready to go.

 

This is one we did with a wood floor, my friend is installing the back braces and center rib, that doubles as a seat riser. We used plywood bottom and back, and they were upholstered.

 

Wow that just looks god very nice and I dig the color combo.

 

This is an interesting plan to be sure. I can tell you from experience however that things will inevitably change as you go along in the build.

You will find things that will or will not work, or you will find different ideas or parts that can change the direction of your build.

These projects usually evolve along the way, if you were to read my build thread from beginning to end, you would see the changes I have gone through, and I'm not done yet

 

I've seen it mentioned elsewere that the body wood can be attached with regular body filler.
I'm kinda iffy on that as I'd figure having mat wrapping around the wood would add strength and also hold the wood in place more securely.
Perhaps float the wood in place with the body filler to prevent gaps and make alignment easy...and then once the filler dries, wrap it all securely with mat?

Thoughts???

 

Absolutely! The way I have done it in every car I have done. The mat and cloth over the top of the wood adds a ton of strength to the deal, too. You do have to be careful in areas that the trim is going to attach to though as you don't want to get the 'glass so thick you can't nail or staple trough it.

 

Marty, do you sell just the interior cage? And if so, what's the cost?

 

Originally, I was going to wood my interior for upholstery. I sketched and cut out my wood pieces for installation using body filler. I was sooo proud when I finished. Mixed up some filler and went to town. THEN, I came back the next day and half the pieces had fallen off.

Rather than do it over with 'glass, I threw in the towel. I also threw some of the wood pieces. If I were to go that route again, I'd definitely 'glass in the wood pieces.

It's almost funny because I 'glassed in my seat, but it never crossed my mind to do it with the interior strips.

 

As some of you know, the Total T is still out there. The company that made all Total's T bodies is still making, and selling them. I make the frames for them. If anyone is interested just PM me and I will get contact info for you.

This is his ad..........http://providence.craigslist.org/pts/3840293042.html

Thanks tfeverfred

 

Anyone have any info on this "T"?

 

That's an email prompt. No ad appears.

 

Not trying to hijack the thread, but anyone know what happened to Advance Fiberglass in Haverhill Mass.?

 

The big step most miss is to rough up the inside of the body before trying to use either glass or bondo as a bonding agent. If you skip that step it'll never stick in a million years.

 

http://providence.craigslist.org/pts/3840293042.html

 

That's Rudy Herrida's car that we were talking about a page or two back. I posted a Car Craft cover with a partial picture of the car on it.

 

"NOW, you tell me."

 

The idea is to wipe down every inch of the inside of the body with lots of rags and acetone to remove the wax that resin has to make it cure. Then you take a body grinder with something like a 50 grit disc and scuff the entire surface of the interior to give it tooth. Then you wipe it down again with more acetone and rags and you are ready to bond the wood to the body.

I normally cut strips of mat as wide and long as the piece of wood I am attaching and I layer those about 3 deep and wet them down with resin. Then I press the piece of wood into the mat and clamp the wood tight to the body until the resin cures.

It is important to cut lots of strips of mat and have them ready to go because once your hands start getting covered with resin you don't want to be using scissors to cut more mat. I go through a lot of vinyl throw away gloves and throw away paint brushes when doing glass work.



Don

Oh, and buy your resin and mat at a boatyard or old time marine store where they pump the resin out of a 55 gallon drum or at least sell it by the gallon. Much cheaper than buying it in those prepackaged kits that lots of places sell. You will be amazed how much resin, mat, paint sticks, plastic tubs, and throw away brushes you will consume.

 

The main reason for the gloves is that for us old guys is that as soon as I get started, and it never fails ---I got to pee

 

Avoiding the dreaded "sticky willy"?

 

Here is how I did mine:



I cut strips of 3/4 plywood, cut relief cuts into the plywood to allow it bend to the shape of the body.

I used PL Premium and glued it to the sides of the body. You will need a ton of clamps to do it this way.




While I was cutting the wood, I went ahead and shaped out the seats.


Once all that was complete, I trimmed the body to the edge of the wood, then glassed it all in.



Further along in the next pic. I also added more wood to the passenger side in case I wanted to cut a door later on.

 

Oh yeah I forgot to add, work in small sections, do NOT try and glass the floor all at once as you will fail and make a huge mess...lol

I learned real fast that smaller sections are easier to work with and much less mess in the end.

 

This is a body I "hand laid" back in the mid-70's and it turned out well, however I never mastered making it look easy. I have a friend who is a whiz with the stuff, that is him in one of my earlier posts. He mixes some powder in the resin, making it thick to fill gaps, prior to laying the mat and cloth. He also uses a waxed paper product called "Peel Ply", to lay on the top of the last coat, when the resin kicks off, he peels it off. It makes a slick, smooth finish, just more tricks of the trade.

 

Yeah I get that and I'm just writing things down of how I want to start attacking and if it goes as planned then this is how I want to do things. I know it wont go that way but it gives me something to do and keep the build fresh in my head.

The body, motor, trans and than frame are first on my list to get and get started on. The frame is last in that list because depending on what motor I go with Mopar big block or SBC, SBF or small block mopar depends on what lenght my frame will be.

I also want to plan out the color combo and gauges for the dash along with the wheels.

Hey CT thanks for the link I will check that out.

 

Haha no going there!

The picture of the steering colum tell me can I go up higher on the firewall? I had thought about going through the dash as I have seen some in pictures and Gene's car is one of those.

Also very good wood working skills I need to invest in some saws now. I do have a friend that moved an hour or so away from me that is a master at wood working. He sees it in his head and carves it out.

I know he is looking for some side jobs so it may be something he could help me with and come up with an idea of my seating ideas as well.

Great looking job!

 

What I like about threads like this one is that we get to see how different people go about solving problems in different ways from each other and yet they all seem to get the job done. It shows that there is more than one right way to do anything.

I did have one disaster when I was building my 23 T. I had to make a pretty big trans hump because I sat so far down into the car and the motor was so high. Some friends on another forum were talking about using styrofoam sheets to make a mold over which to put glass so I decided to try it. What they failed to mention is that you can not simply put wet resin over styrofoam as it melts !

I shaped the tunnel out of the styrofoam and started to lay up wet glass mat and after a while I started to notice the whole thing was sagging badly. I had to rip out the wet mat before the whole thing cured and toss it into the garbage can.

When I went back on the forum they said "Oh yeah, you have to put a barrier coat of duct tape or plastic sheeting over the styrofoam or that will happen." So I made a whole new styrofoam tunnel and this time I covered it with red duct tape in several layers so the resin wasn't near the styrofoam. It worked great this time, so I learned a lesson. When the fiberglass hardened I just had to peel the styrofoam from underneath it and I had a perfect tunnel.

Don

 

Oh man I bet that was a mess and I never thought about styrofoam to mold things. Now where do I get that much styrofoam blocks?

Yeah there is so many ways to get things done that you guys shock me on this board with how much talent is out there.

I would love to open a school and have you guys as teachers.

 

This thread just keeps getting better and better. Thanks to all who have posted pictures and info. One of the reasons my T ended up on hold was I was dreading fiberglassing, as I have not done it before. The info here should make things go much easier once I get back to finishing it.

 

Glassing stuff really isn't that hard... It just sucks and is itchy!