Event Coverage Sectioning A '58 Chevrolet by Gene Winfield

thanxs

for the pics hope you dont mind me posting them in my post

 

I dont know how the hell i missed this one, but dam I would have loved to been there just too take in some of the experience Gene has!

 

I'm curious how you guys get the doors to line up. They're gone in the pics. My wife gave me the $$ okay to go, but I had prior obligations. It looks like you folks had a busy, fun and inspired weekend. Gene is ageless.

 

The body was lined up at the door jambs. The door was cut in the jamb section in the same place as the body, while the inner structure behind the door panel was cut in several different places to clear the window and latch mechanisms. That may be confusing to describe, but will make more sense when I get some more of my pictures up. The door pretty much wet right back in the hole happy as a clam. It is tacked at the moment and there is some adjusting it needs to tweak the curves and gaps, but careful measuring and planning paid off with a pretty close fit. Jimmy, one of the guys who works for Gene (and is legally blind BTW) planned and planned on the doors for hours before any cuts were made.


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OUTSTANDING!!!!

Winfield has many fans.





On the Star Trek episode #54 (Bread and Circuses) in 1967, Winfield's Reactor is known as the “Jupiter 8 car”.

 

Speechless....what a great opportunity. Thanks H.A.M.B. and those who were there to document such a cool experience for us to read and be apart of. Thank you Gene!

 

Wish I took this class before I sectioned mine, took at lot longer too and still not finished. Gene and others like him have so much knowledge and its great that he's teaching others so it won't be lost.

 

What an awesome thread
Hopefully Gene does something this way again

 

A slice here and a dice there= lookin good!

 

Any more pictures to share??

 

Yes sir....I am resizing a pile to upload...maybe a hundred or so.

 

Well, ok, I lied. Guess I have about 50 photos added to an album, so here we go.

Here is the car Gene started with. He got it from a friend who has an impound yard some where. It was a complete, pretty much running car. He did not have it stripped or prepped because they were also filming a new DVD on sectioning during this project and wanted to show the entire process from complete car to finished section.



Here is the stripped shell. We left in all the windows, regulators, etc., which actually made it easier to figure out what needed to be worked around in planning the cuts.



At one point in the morning I looked up and said, "Is that Steve Stanford standing over there?" Sure enough, Steve came by to do a few segments for the class and the video on different ways to section a car and planning your cuts. What a super nice guy! I got to talk with him a fair amount during the day. He even brought some of his art with him to show us during lunch. Impressive, of course.



Once the front clip was off, the mounts on the radiator support were marked for moving up the 4 inches of the section. Alex jumps in and gets them cut in no time.



You can see here the camera from the video production, but the focus here is Gene using a piece of file folder cut to the 4 inches of the section. He uses the file folder to mark the cuts because it folds around corners, etc. nicely to keep the cut lines parallel. You can see it here folded in and around the folds of the cowl.



Steve and I got to talking about where to cut the front clip and here are Gene and Steve working out the finer points of the deal. In the end, since Gene planned to drop the rear panel straight down with a rolled pan instead of the bumper, it was decided to do the same thing on the front. There were still a few details with where to cut the front fenders that I will show in a bit.



Alex starts cutting the rear 1/4's. Gene intends to put the Impala side trim back on, which will go right back over the cuts. That being the case, Gene decided to overlap the rear 1/4's to help make it easier to line everything back up and minimize warpage rather than a butt weld down the 1/4's. The cuts were made along the top line, but the bottom cuts were made about 1/2 inch up from the 4 inch mark. The door jambs were cut right at 4 inches however and butt welded so it would all line up correctly.



Here you can see where the back edge of the 1/4's were cut vertically so the entire rear panel would drop straight down.



This is the cowl and you can see where the cuts were stepped to clear various odds and ends. The jamb needed to be cut pretty much right in the middle and the firewall needed to be cut further up. You can also see a few pieces left in place uncut to keep the car together until we were ready for it to actually come apart.



Firewall cuts. Again, stepped here and there to clear and keep intact things like brake mounts, bottom of the cowl/vent and wiper assembly. This way all that stuff was not interrupted and mounts right back in place without modification.



Gene cutting the trunk hinge brackets from the inner fenders. Hey, he's wearing my helmet...."Mr. Winfield, would you sign that for me?" LOL



Alex making the final cuts removing the uncut pieces that were left behind to keep it all together until it was time....it's time!



Here we are apart.





And this brings us to the end of day one. The day actually started with a lecture on metal working and there were also a few demos during the day. I will go back and cover all that stuff together at the end.

 

Day two started by everyone working on sanding and filing the cut edges to clean them up and prep them for welding. Then it was time to set the top back on the bottom. There were a few clearance issues, so the top half went up and down a couple of times to sort that all out before going down for the last time.



As you would expect, it took lots of folks to lift, set down and working with pry bars, screw drivers, etc. to get the overlaps all pushed/pulled the right directions. It could be done with one or two guys, but it would take a lot longer.













Here is the back edge of the trunk pan with the body slipped down past it.

 

Coming back to the front clip, here you can see where it was dropped straight down the 4 inches. Originally, Gene wanted to drop the front the full 4 inches like the back panel, then only cut 2 inches from above the fender lip then cut the full 4 inches from the back of the fender. That would essentially raise the fender lip 2 inches in relation the rest of the car. The problem came when it was realized that leaving the Impala side trim on would not allow the fender lip to come up 2 inches since the trim sits only 1/2 inch above the lip. So, Gene made the call to only cut the 4 inches from the back of the fender and then rework the lip as necessary.





At the end of the day, the plan was changed again, and the 4 inch slice was put back in and the bottom of the fender behind the wheel was cut of instead as is seen in the final pics of the car all back together. That of course goofed of the door gap at the front of the door. So, there is more planning, cutting and reworking to come on the front clip that we simply didn't have time to do in two days.

The doors were another thing all together and were pretty complex. As I mentioned earlier, Jimmy worked hours on planning the cuts on them. The plan was to cut one door down the middle. The second door was going to have the outer skin cut loose from the edges and the inner structure cut the 4 inches then the outer skin laid back down and 4 inches cut off the bottom. Doing each door different would allow both ways to be filmed for the DVD. Unfortunately there was only time to get the first door done. Looking at the pics, you can see the complexity of the cuts, but like the cowl and firewall, this kept all the door latch and window hardware intact and functioning as originally designed without modification. You could trash it all and put in bear claws and power windows, too and have straighter cuts but more work to get all the new stuff in and working.







Alex making the cuts.





And the inner structure after the whole thing is back together. The access holes will need to be opened back up to get to all the hardware and get the window stuff out when needed.

 

Dr. Dave:

Huge thanks for you taking the time to post the photo's. Hope you can continue and post more later. Again, THANKS. Stu

 

Well, I started on the demos but had to set it aside part way through. I guess I let it sit to long and my session had timed out by the time I hit "post." I'll have to come back to it later.

 

Hi Dave, Your pictures are great! Thanks for posting them!
I worked with you on the 58 and we had dinner with everybody on Saturday night. I still can't believe we did that much work in 2 days!
Definitely a memory I won't forget!!!! Thanks for everything! Richard.

 

As if chopping wasn't challenging enough...SECTIONING! Thats one hell of a complex task... how long did it take to actually finish? I would LOVE to go to one of those... I'd be thrilled with a mere chop....

 

Ain't that the truth? I am soooo glad I got to go. Will certainly make me a better back yard builder. I might need to find something to section now just because I think I might could do it. LOL

What you see was done in two days of about 10 hours each. As it sits now, the body is all lined up and tacked and the driver's door is tacked. The passenger door still needs done and the front fenders need fine tuned to line up the front door gap. A couple of guys who know what they are doing with welders could have it finished in another couple of days I think.

Day one started with a lecture with Gene going through the various pieces of metal working equipment, tools and lots of tips.



Here is his fade painted english wheel. Too cool!



For the first demo he took a flat sheet and beat "walnuts" in the middle of it on the sandbag with a hammer made from an acetylene bottle cap. Then to the english wheel for a few runs. In about 8 minutes he had a nice blister ready for priming and blocking sweet as can be.



Next demo was filling the antenna hole by hammer welding in a plug.



If you look closely, the blur you see is Gene's hammer showing that weld no mercy.



He also did a demo on leading. Here he is tinning and laying down the lead.



Smoothing it with the paddles....



...and the same lead after he let us all have a hand at it. Clearly we need some more practice.



A quick demo on gas welding the seams of rear fender wells after the pinch weld was cut off the tops for clearance.



On day two he hammer welded two flat sheets together then took the panel to the sand bag for more "walnuts" as he calls them.



After a few runs through the english wheel he started picking the low spots.



Hit it with some 100 grit...



....and then fine tune it with the slap file.



And viola, a blister right through the middle of a gas weld as nice as can be. A little primer and a few minutes block sanding and it's good to go. Piece of cake, right?

 

He also did a couple of demos on different ways to form a finished edge, say on the exposed edge of a scoop. First way was manually with all hand tools. Here he uses a crescent wrench to bring up the edge after marking it.



Then bringing the edge up further with a hammer and dolly.



And then finishing the edge off by hammering it down the rest of the way. He actually does not hammer the edge flat, but leaves it up a smidge saying it makes a stronger edge.



Then he does the same thing again, this time breaking the edge over with a set of rollers.



After the same hammering first against a dolly then slowing bringing it down the rest of the way with a hammer, you can see the final edge.



A few of us stuck around after the certificates and pictures were done not wanting to let the good times end hoping to glean any last bits of wisdom we could. One of the guys needed some trim shortened for one of his projects so Gene started messing with it to see the best way to fold the edge back over to have a nice finish to it. The biggest thing I learned there was to cut it waaaaaay back away from the final like so you have a few tries at getting the edge you want and how much material it is going to take. He also fixed a few dings which was nice to see and have another take home skill.



The final demo was pressing some flames (or any pattern) into a sheet (in this case aluminum) with the english wheel. He had a pattern cut which he cleco'ed to the work piece. The "male" pattern is on one side and the "female" pattern is on the other with the work piece in the middle.



A few progressively tighter runs through the english wheel....



...and viola, flames as nice as can be. He did this to the roof panel on his T he races at Bonneville and it looks real cool.



And there you have it. A TON of info in just two days. I recommend if you ever get the chance, take one of his classes. No matter your skill level, you will learn something to make you a better builder. Alex has a class coming up shortly at his shop. If I were you and you at all could make it, I would get a hold of Alex and get yourself signed up. You won't be sorry!

 

Great stuff Dave, thanks for posting.

 

Thank you for sharing. I had The oportunity to talk to gene at sema about The then upcoming 58 sectikning class. I would kill to go to one of those!

 

Drdave, your pictures rule!!! There's supposed to be a DVD on this coming up in the future???

 

I recorded a couple of videos during the class.


Here is a shot of the car at the end of the first day when it was in two pieces:




This was taken in the morning on the second day after the top of the car was put back on:




Here is Gene giving a welding lesson:

 

Nice coverage. Thanks!

 

That's what I understand. All that filming they did is supposed to be turned into a how to video on sectioning. When it will be available though I did not hear.

 

A very big THANK YOU to all of you that shared the great pictures and videos with all of us!

Also a huge THANK YOU to Mr. Winfield for sharing so much of his knowledge and skills with all of us.

I really wish that I could have gone and been a part of this amazing class but I hope to attend another in the near future. Looks like you guys had a blast.