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Projects 26-27 Tall T coupe

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by crozch, Feb 11, 2014.

  1. Thanks Guys

    means alot to hear all that :) I really love the look of exposed well finished wood in traditional cars too, But only if its where it is supposed to be, like the body/roof frames etc I really dont like it when dashes for example start to be made out of wood and the ones iv seen have been very poorly done, ruins a car usually for me,

    Also thanks Tom I love Tall T's especially when theyre a little different like mine and not painted black, nearly every model T coupe you google is chopped within and inch of its life and painted black one way or another, now dont get my wrong I love a good chop and love gloss black painted hotrods, its a timeless look but there is something called taste lol, too much of a chop can ruin a car but also can make it look as badass as hell but the rest of the car needs to be done right and theres alot of Chopped Black T coupe that have been wrecked unfortunately as theyre a beautiful car, Tall T's for me is such and old school look and reminds me of wacky Races and its different theres not many tall T coupes around these days especially on Vancouver Island Iv hear of two others but as far as I know theyre not on the road yet, hope you get on to your Project in the near future,

    My next car will hopefully Be an A of some kind im not to picky with either a coupe/tudor/pickup variety and it will be chopped for sure, hopefully a 30/31

    Back on to my coupe:

    my roof frame will be left exposed but varnished/laquered gloss or semigloss to leave the nice Ash (I think) wood grain exposed. I cant wait to start getting that fitted might start on it tomorow if I get a chance,

    been doing the bench seat tonight though

    once my bench seat base and back was together I started on the webbing on the base

    [​IMG]

    once that was done I placed a small piece of inch thick foam on the webbing the same size as the whole, directly above, which of course getting excited about getting the foam done I forgot to take a photo of, this piece of foam though was to take up abit of give in the webbing and stop the thicker main piece of foam forming into and around the shape of the cut out, it will also give the seat a slight crown look when there is no one sitting on it,

    The foam iv used is High Density foam from a foam and upholstery shop local to me, not sure of another name for it

    Thats it for a few minutes im waiting for the glue to dry :)

    Charlie
     
  2. Dick Stevens
    Joined: Aug 7, 2012
    Posts: 3,710

    Dick Stevens
    Member

    Doesn't it work better if you weave the webbing over and then under, instead of running them all under or over the cross webbing?
     
  3. Heres the seat from underneath showing the base webbing and you can see the small piece of yellow foam through the webbing that I forgot to take a photo of that sits over the webbing, same shape as the hole,

    [​IMG]

    Here is the seat the right way up showing the base foam Im using 3" in this application for the base and 2" for the back as I need a low profile seat so as to not be sitting up to high, and the 2" so it doesnt start making the seat base too narrow,

    [​IMG]

    the back piece currently has its batting on to add an extra cushy layer on top of the foam, once I get 4 more 1/4 inch bolts that I forgot to get, that go under the foam that I will secure to the ply with washers and nylock nuts on each ( to secure the seat to the car) I can put the bases batting on too then it is ready for the leather which I havnt got yet, the leather will have about a 1/4 or so piece of foam stitched into it as a backing to give the nice soft curved shape tuck and roll should have. Iv got a nice design/tuck n Roll in mind for the seat with some piping, in a similar colour in leather as the root beer paint on the car, its not the most extravagant bench seat by any means but its nice and comfortable and will do its job well so il be happy with it for sure which is the main thing,

    cant wait for the bench to go in it will be way more comfortable than these that were in there before

    [​IMG]

    (not the best picture but you can just make out the uncomfortable bomber style aluminum buckets I previously had in there)

    next up soon untill I get the leather will be fitting the Top wood kit

    Charlie
     
  4. mj40's
    Joined: Dec 11, 2008
    Posts: 3,303

    mj40's
    Member

    As a retired upholster, yes it is best to lap the webbing. It will make for a stronger base and keep the webbing from moving side to side and your butt falling through the cracks. Nice job though and following this one.
     
    crozch likes this.
  5. Dick Stevens
    Joined: Aug 7, 2012
    Posts: 3,710

    Dick Stevens
    Member

    And he still has a chance to change that before upholstery is done, without too much difficulty.
     
    crozch likes this.
  6. Thanks guys and thanks for the Advice, i was thinking about this while doing it, and wasnt too sure which way to go, I know what iv got will be better than no webbing and hole cut out at all but like you say its probably best to do it that way though the webbing is pretty well stapled down and my foam is pretty well glued too, il look into it but if the foam doesnt come up too easily without tearing I probably have to leave it unfortunately

    Hoping to get onto the top today :)

    Charlie
     
  7. mj40's
    Joined: Dec 11, 2008
    Posts: 3,303

    mj40's
    Member

    You can hog ring the webbing to each other from the bottom side to keep the movement down.
     
  8. Thanks for the heads up on Hog ringing the webbing might be a good way togo as the foam is definitely well stuck down now, just getting into the sides to put my location bolts for the seat riser was not much fun and didnt dare go any further,

    I got going on the top wood kit today didnt get much done as I didnt get to start till alot later than planned but I did get my trunk, paint and bondo to my buddy whos going to finish that up for me as now im at my new job and not at the Hotrod/restoration job that I quit I havnt got access to a paint booth which is a shame, but saves some hard graft sanding which I hate,

    Is started out cutting out my steel temporary roof frame I made up

    [​IMG]

    amazing how open It looks with nothing there

    sorry for the poor photos will get some better ones when im next working on it, heres the rear piece in place,

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Luckily I had this original wood piece to reference from showing me the original counter sunk holes they did from the factory otherwise I might have know this is how it was done, iv decided though I going to do the carriage bolts the other way up (originally they were upside down) so you can see the carriage head from the top on the wood side as I plan to have the snap on canvas top off alot I want it to look nice and figure this will look nicer than seeing a nut and washer sticking up through the wood,

    [​IMG]

    it took a bit of sanding to get this guy to fit properly as the manufacturer didnt router the wood to sit down enough into the body's return, so I had to sand out extra (about a 3/16 to a 1/4" so it would sit down properly where the wood half way up sticks out a little over the outside of the body,

    next I mocked up the rest of it just for a look see to see how its going to go together, I did this before but with out the rear piece bolted down, so now I had that as a starting point to give me a better Idea as im going to use that as a starting point, and work forwards from the back.

    [​IMG]

    Biggest problem Iv run into is the quarter window pieces where the woods curve is totally different, which is probably partly my fault making the quarters from scratch but then I didnt have anything to go off, also the wood pieces just dont seem to line up properly together so I think its again abit or the manufacturers fault (probably going off half rotten originals as templates) and a bit of my fault too,

    [​IMG]

    this sides a little better

    [​IMG]

    I think my solution to this is maybe to piecut the curved pieces of wood on the inside upto the last 1/4 inch or so towards the outside, wood glue it and clamp it, but im wondering if that would be strong enough??? comments on this would be much appreciated :)

    I also for kicks tried the bench seat in the car tonight to see how happy I am with it overall, and im very happy, I just wanted to see if the base mainly was comfy enough in the car and if I wanted an extra layer of foam or not on top which I dont think I going to do as I dont want to go any higher in the driving position, and its comfortable enough as it is, very comfortable actually, also not put in the bolts to locate it to the seat riser too which I picked up this afternoon,

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    thats it for now untill friday where my weekend starts again (I get a 3 day long weekend every weekend now as we work 4 ten hour days :D )

    Charlie
     
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2017
  9. Really looking good,It's refreshing to see a Tall T to remain a Tall T and not be chopped to death! HRP
     
    crozch likes this.
  10. Baron
    Joined: Aug 13, 2004
    Posts: 3,636

    Baron
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    I think I would shave the outside piece to follow the contour of the body. Once it is all together and covered, it will look just as it should. The only other thing you could do is make two new corner pieces. Seeing you metal fabrication, cutting and fitting a couple pieces of wood should be pretty easy.
     
  11. Thanks HRP I keep hearing that and im glad I kept it that way too, im not planning on ever chopping it, I just love it the way it is,

    thanks Baron yh theyre both the options im thinking of going, Im probably going to try shaving the pieces down first if they dont look right il remake them, for some reason the passenger side works out better doing that than the drivers side, looking forward to getting back on it of friday,

    Charlie
     
  12. I might have missed it, but what did you use for the webbing?
     
  13. its meant to be proper elasticated seat webbing I got from a local Auto upholstery store here in Victoria
     
  14. no problem, theres two kinds upholster's apparently use? the first kind they quickly showed me was seat belt material, which is half the price of the elasticated, it barely has any give and the idea of the webbing is to act spring like, have a little give in it and hopefully add some extra comfort to the seat (hopefully Iv bought and fitted the right stuff lol)

    hope this helps
    Charlie
     
  15. Finally I got back on the coupe on friday, and got a little more done, probably about 80 percent of it screwed together which was nice,

    First off I started by putting the back window top wood piece back in where I left off before, and tried the quarter window pieces in a few positions to see which way worked out the best, Im still not sure which way to go with them at this point so I started on the header panel next which seemed the best way to go as once I get the front wood work in I can start fitting the quarter pieces in accordingly with making them fit with the rear wood panel and front and side wood panels they connect into, first I had to get the header wood piece central with the windshield header panel,

    [​IMG]

    you can see my non existent curve in the steel part of the header, because I just didnt know, not having an original to go from, but I have some tricks up my sleeve to make this work which I will get to when I get there.

    the header panel I found some photos of online to find out roughly where it should go placement wise and it seemed the inside (car interior) edge of wood panel should be flush with the steel header panels interior edge too.

    I marked out the center of both and clamped it down, the side wood pieces pretty much tell you where they want to be as there are a few little notches on the underside that determine where they need to be with the T's A pillar brackets etc and with the header wood panel in place they all met up pretty well with where I thought they should be,

    next was fitting those corners together

    the photo doesnt show quite how bad it was but its a birds eye view of the side piece meeting up with the header panel piece, and hopefully showing there was some trimming to be done

    [​IMG]

    it doesn't look like much in the photo but I ended up taking off about a 1/4" of wood to make the curved joints flush as the two separate pieces were very different to each other, it was pretty much the same both sides

    [​IMG]


    [​IMG]

    next now I had the two front corners screwed together and fitting well, and the header central with the car and screwed to the body from the A pillar screw brackets I could move onto the bows,

    I started by first clamping down the side panels to the body so they cant move while trimming the bows as none of them fitted with out some shaping and sanding. first off though while clamping I had to make sure the part of the side wood panels, thats sits down into the lip/return of the top of the window panels, were pushed outwards tightly up against the outside of the lip, hopefully that makes sence, then the bows could start to be fitted once firmly clamped.

    [​IMG]

    heres the front two centered up you can see by how much they were to big so I just rounded the ends untill they neatly fitted into the factory counter sink/drilled holes.

    The further I went back towards the back of the cars bows though, the worse they got in terms of being too long.

    this is one side of the second or third bow fitted after some fettling

    [​IMG]

    I think this was actually the second bow and already having to shave the underside down to fit,
    this is the bow upside down to show what I had to shave down so the bow sat down more, to be flush with the top of the side panels once in its hole, and screwed down.

    [​IMG]

    This is the very rear bow centered up showing how much to wide it is, and needing to be chopped off,

    [​IMG]

    As said the the further I got towards the back they got a little worse, once they were trimmed to shape, you get into the the thicker part of the wood as they taper it out to sit into the hole, but having to trim so much off it ended up sitting too high so I had to shave the height of them down, and getting into the very last bow I started to have to do a double step to make the taper further out sit down enough, not sure I took a photo of the double step though

    you can just about see in this photo where the bow tapers down is touching the upper corner of the side wood panel, this is where in a couple of bows I had to double step it to clear the holes height, then to clear this upper corner clearance issue to sit down enough,

    [​IMG]

    Here are all the bows in place fitting fairly well and screwed down, its looking pretty neat so far, so im quite happy, only part I havn't got to finishing yet is the quarter panel pieces which I think will be a bit of a pain, but Im hoping to get back onto that tomorow so I can call it done and hopefully glue the frame together for some added strength, not sure if thats what they did back in the day?? but its what im planning to do unless theres any reason I shouldnt?

    I also found alot of what I guess was 90 year old dum dum under the original rear window header wood piece (Before I painted the car) which was obviously used to help weather proof it, this is also something im going to do too before I finally bolt it down after being laquered/varnished,

    looking forward to finally having this job finished and calling it done as its been a job iv been looking forward to for a while so I can have a roof at last, Also I just love the raw original wood look,

    heres the front corners after I got it trimmed up and smoothed off with a quick go over with the sand paper, and screwed together, looks much better.
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    looks much nicer than the temporary steel frame I had in there previously was a huge relief cutting that out :)

    still not sure on what these pieces are that came in the kit though if anyone has any Ideas?? just cant figure out where they should go I will have a better look tomorrow and might be one of those obvious things once I find it but if anyone actually knows please let me know

    Hopefully this post might be of use to someone else in the future as a rough guideline as im sure your car will fit a bit differently than mine has which would be interesting to see where it differs.

    Also an interesting tip alot of people will know but some might not, is that alot of the 27T parts, doors, doors garnish mouldings, winshield, windshield garnish, A Pillars, A Pillar garnishes, A Pillar/Door hinges windshield swing arms/brackets etc are meant to be the same as early 28 model A parts to I guess use up the rest of left over ford parts in the early A pickup production this I believe changed in later 28 and 29 though, im not even sure If I have randomly an A door on my T as the doors are exactly the same as each other on the outside, but the interior panel with the moulding/stampings on them are different side to side if that helps figure it out I can post photos if anyone is interested? as Iv always wondered about this

    Thats it for tonight until the next session on the car hopefully tomorrow,


    Thanks
    Charlie
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2014
    AndersF likes this.
  16. I should really do some up dates on my old thread as iv done a few more things, finished and had the removable top upholstered too
     
    Hackerbilt likes this.
  17. So it's been a while since posting on my thread, iv been busy the last month or so building my Louvre press when ever iv had time, to finally be able to punch my trunk and roll pan below the trunk on my T, I also picked up a 31A which I plan to punch its trunk lid too, press frame is finished just a few little things left to do before it's all ready to punch though,

    Looks like I'm going to have to post photos of it later as the links to the photo bucket account aren't working right now
     
    Baron likes this.
  18. IMG_0204.JPG
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    So here's a few photos of my new Louvre press Pretty happy with how it turned out, there's just a few little things left to do before I'm finally punching holes,

    It's made of 2x4 x 1/4" steel mostly with 4x4 x 1/4" for the main backbone and some 2.5x2.5 x 1/4" for the front two pieces where the dies actually mount to, the hardest part I found was keeping them square to each other throughout the weld out, it was kind of a strategic weld out process figuring out where to weld first then the next weld etc as the metal moves in welding then trying to keep the heat the same/similar the other side to pull it back, but I got it damn close so that's the main thing!

    currently on my way to go pickup my T to start its finishing work lol, it was in storage in my grandparents garage over the winter while il finished my shop (redid the deck above and closed in the the carport now shop) toward the end of last year, then had lots of my own customers work to do in there over the winter too, so the T had to hibernate over the winter but she's coming home today! Can't wait!

    Il update as I progress :)
    Charlie
     
    Last edited: Mar 17, 2017
  19. So finally I got to do my first few sets of test louvres yesterday and last night, little bit of tweaking here and there as I made the dies myself from scratch, and then had to make a spring loaded foot on the back side to help minimize distortion when punching the next Louvre, it all seems to work quite well so I'm fairly pleased with it, can't wait to get on to the Ts trunk now
     

    Attached Files:

    b-bop, Baron and AndersF like this.
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    Last edited: Mar 19, 2017
  21. Baron
    Joined: Aug 13, 2004
    Posts: 3,636

    Baron
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    Nice job. Lot of work doing each one by hand. Be nice to find a power ram for short money you could make work. That way you can use both hands to hold the panel and the foot pedal to operate the press. Like the shape of the louvers .
     
  22. toml24
    Joined: Sep 23, 2009
    Posts: 1,620

    toml24
    Member

    Since you are on record for wanting to be different, what would you say to low profile tires and wheels, such as 15 inch off a 1990 Acura Integra RS, and, a short throw 5-speed. I'm just thinking out loud. Your Tall-T would be the coolest car at the local car shows.
     
  23. Not exactly sure what your getting at toml24 ?
     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2017
  24. Thanks Baron turning it into electric over hydraulic is one of my next things on the list of things to do soon, thanks with their shape I took the front hole profile off my buddy's AV8 louvred trunk louvres as I really liked their shape, the rest was kinda just shaped by eye and I kinda like how they turned out, little bit of tweaking here and there and it will be good to go
     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2017
    Baron likes this.
  25. I'm hoping to get my trunk and roll pan off this week and hopefully get started this week or over the weekend more updates to come
     

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