Projects Tony Miller's Custom 40 Ford Convertible

Just amazing vision and execution! She's awesome!

 

Man, this car is coming together nicely. Looks great, guys!!


Malcolm

 

This has to be the BEST thread that I've seen posted since I have become a member on HAMB. I am wanting to build a custom grill for my 39 and now I have some great ideas on where to start thanks to this thread. Great build fellas, can't wait to see more!!!!

 

I like it better with just the trim down the side of the car and no trim on the center of the hood or down the middle of the grille.

As with all of you projects, this is a class ride!!!!

.

 

It's not often you see someone's vision actually take shape in real life.
Few are gifted with the ability to see past what the factory gave us as their final product.
Sure, we take the factory designed cars and change the paint, stance, wheels, tires and maybe "shave" the geegaws off the body, but seldom do we see a real life redesign and complete make-over of what the factory design team missed.
We usually accept what the factory designed as being what we have to work with and go from there.
But Tony takes the factory designs and styling and completely rethinks the entire package.
I can only imagine the hours and hours it takes to mull over the largest and smallest changes to make what the factory did better.
We've all seen the final product of people's dreams not exactly coming to a successful conclusion. No doubt many people's mental ideas of what they wish for doesn't quite jive with their final product. We've all gone to car shows and cruise-ins and seen examples of how someone's "vision" doesn't match the final "reality". What one thinks in their mind usually doesn't translate from "idea" to metal shaping. It's easier to dream an idea than turn it into a rolling, operating automobile. Few have the talent to "envision" and then have the talented hands to construct what your mind "sees". That's only the arena for the talented, gifted and the people with patience.
It must be very rewarding to see your dreams take shape from an idea to a three-dimensional work of art.
Too bad those factory styling guys are all gone. It sure would be fun to see their faces now.
Nice going Tony and Don.

 

The whole car just flows so well, and I love the grill.
What that Water jet is capable of doing is very impressive.

 

That grille looks awesome, but with that much 1/4" thick stainless it must weigh close to fifty pounds.

 

It's only 3/16" but, yeah, it's kind of heavy.

The grille still has a fair amount of finish work yet to be done. The reason we used stainless was we plan to sand the face of the grille to remove the slight stair step effect from bar to bar. Then we will probably sandblast the entire thing one more time and then polish the face of the bars giving an effect very much like the Mercury grille.

 

Looking really fine guys, this car will clearly set a new bar for anyone trying to improve on the originals. Happy to see the pictures of work underway. Thanks.

 

Original 40 Merc grills come at a premium, someone should use this process to produce replacement grills.

 

It would be possible, of course, but it would be more expensive than finding and restoring a stock '40 Merc grille -- even given the prices that they bring.

Thanks to everyone for the compliments. I know that I speak for Don when I say that it's very gratifying for both of us.

 

Don, the work you and your team are doing on the grille and hood is absolutely amazing. The new photos of the grille installed with the clay shaped hood are stunning.
The whole car has amazing lines and perfect proportions.

 

brilliant work and styling !!! thanks for sharing the process

 

Yeah, boy...that's pretty!

 

I changed the title of the thread to minimize some confusion.
When we left off a few days back the plan was to use the Mercury eyebrows and modify the hood (again!) to fit them. We continued on this path for a bit until we got to the point that we had to address the cracks in the Mercury pieces. Unfortunately, our attempts at further repairs ended in failure when I applied a little too much heat for the pot metal to endure. It melted like an ice cube on the pavement in July.
So, now what? I thought about patching it back together with epoxy, Bondo, & Dubble Bubble and then using that as a pattern to make a sand casting. The trouble with that is I’ve never done any sand casting and I’d like to practice on something else first. No time for that right now.
Back to my original idea, whittle some out of aluminum. It’s a pretty complex shape but, what do I have to lose? I grabbed a stick of bar stock out of the metal rack and got to it. The first step was to cut it to length and cut the basic curves on the leading end.



Hold it up to the hood and see how it looks. Good start. Now I’ll start bending it to get the back side to conform to the shape of the hood.

First I’ll give it a little twist and then check the fit again.


Then I’ll give it a little bend and check the fit again.

 

Two or three more twist and check and bend and check and we now have a piece that fits against the hood pretty good. Now we start carving. All that twisting left us with the bottom of the piece looking like this.

It needs to be flat so, I’m going to grind the back part to be on the same plane as the front edge like it was before I twisted it.


It gets pretty warm with all that grinding and sanding so, every now and then it gets a bath.

Here is the bottom ground back to a flat plane.

And here it is sitting right side up on its flat bottom.

Now I’ll start shaping the front side of it. Basically, everything that I’ve tinted orange has to be sanded off.



Grind & sand, grind & sand, grind & sand and every now and then check the fit.

 

Now that the general shape is good. I’ll spray some Dykem on it for a guide coat and then get after it with the files to make it smooth.


Gotta keep filing until all the blue is gone.


Then I sprayed it again and went at it with 220 grit paper on a wood block.

Again, gotta keep sanding until ALL the blue is gone, even the little tiny blue marks.

 

Then I did it all again with 400 paper. Then I took a handful of Advil

Then I did it all again with 600 paper. Then I took another handful of Advil and a couple shots of JD #7.

Check to see how it looks one more time.

Then I rubbed on it with the buffer for a while. Looks pretty good.

Next up, I got to do it all AGAIN, because I needed one for the other side too.
Here they are just stuck on the car with some two sided tape for now. I will still have to do some fine tuning once they’re properly fastened to the hood and we’ve finished with the final finishing of the grille.

 

Works of art Don! Simply beautiful work.

 

Soooo nice. Great work, great coverage!

 

Very nice!!! Great work.

 

You are a glutton for punishment Don!

 

Work of art!! Jim

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You sure do some nice work, Don. This will be a benchmark car.

 

Don,do I dare ask what the grille weighs after getting it all welded up? I once made a center grille for a 47 Merc and it was very heavy for such a small unit between the stock grilles..

 

I remember seeing a very low 40 once that had problems with hitting the chin. The builder added a skateboard or rollerblade wheel just below the chin that would catch before the chin hit the ground. So the car would glide across on the wheel instead of scraping the chin. just a thought for you guys to consider.

 

I don't know but, it ain't light. I'll run it over to the truck scales next time I have it out.

 

We do plan to add a chin roller just out of sight.

 

Even if you disreguard all the other modofications,adding quarter windows to the car is amazing enough! The finished car will be really something to see.
Great work Don.

 

How the hell did I miss this? What an outstanding build.