What is the strangest piece of metal you used?

Aluminum telephone signs to make a center console, and once used the grille off an old fifties era chest freezer, it just looked to good not to use it!

 

Polaris gas tank



with an additional piece of metal, became the firewall insert in our 51 Fleetline

 

aquamet 22 boat prop shaft for a steering shat..... That stuff is $$$$$$$$$$ boat guy ordered the wrong stuff I think it was in the $130/foot range.

 

I used industrial stainless doors for my floor

 

Blk Pipe to make a spreader bar.

 

I used baby bed rails for fuel tank mounts in one of my old race cars...

 

It might not be metal but its strange I have a shifter boot .It is rouund and a plate holds it down But to keep the boot in place I bent a peice of welding rod and epoxied to the trans tunnel .

 

The hardest one for me to see anyone top is this. We held a Ford Powered show every year and an old man came each year with his stock Model A. We jokingly asked if it was modified or stock (knowing full well it was totally stock) and he remarked he had an aftermarket shifter in it. When we looked inside, there was a metal knee joint he had gotten replaced the year before. He talked the Doc out of it and machined it to use as a shift handle. Called it his millon dollar shifter.

He also had a small paper sack zip tied to the steering column near the dash. That was his air bag.

Cool old guy,
SPark

 

Those political signs everyone sticks in their yard have nice uncoated steel rod in them, I used some when i was rebuilding the quarters on my Edsel. I'm sure there will be a bunch of them around over the next month, I've got to go grab a whole shitload so I'm stocked up.

A guy at the junkyard came up to me and asked me how he could cut a panel out of a refrigerator door without chewing up the edges. Apparently he could tell I'm the kind of guy who'd done that before.

 

some one in my area got in big trouble for " borrowing" those signs..be careful

I think the key is to wait until its over

 

My neighbor gave me 4, 1/2 monel bolts. He said they were for a fighter jet and cost a couple thousand dollars, they don't rust, they won't TIG, you can not cut them, you can not grind them, they are cool, so I put the 500 dollar apiece monel bolts on my exhaust, whoopty doo.

 

I used S-10 fenders for part of my roof.

 

I built roll pans for my F100 out of the modesty panel in a Mayline drafting table.



Drewski

 

When people ask where I got the fender skirts, I tell them they came from a 55 Olds. They really did as I fabbed them from a 55 Olds hood that was rusted too bad to save..........

The frenched lakes dump out in the forward part of the skirts. The trim at the connection of the pipes to the skirts are 55 Olds 98 tail light trim. The small highlight trim back from that is interior door kick panels from a 63 Rambler.

Click on the pic to enlarge...............

 

Machined Inconel exhaust manifolds, for SRT-10 Development.

 

The steering arm on my coupe is made from an old chimney flue (1/2" thick)....the grille is made from a station wagon roof rack.

 

I used mirror arms from a wrecked semi for the fender braces on my '47.
I ditched the stock splash pans,cut and bent the stainless arms to the right length and angle,squished the ends in a vise drilled 'em and bolted them in.
Worked good front and back

 

the outer skin of a washing machine.. and i heard of a guy that used some galvanised steel guttering let over from his house,, matched early model falcon sill shape

 

Transmission pan used for the distributor recess on the firewall. A cake pan used to mount a set of fake Hilborn stacks under the hood of a gasser. Neither one my ideas, but they worked great!

 

Took a roadside break in New Mexico. Pulled a clean piece of tin out of the dirt. Can't make a damn thing out of it. No matter what shape I beat it into, it just straightens itself out......

 

Made repair panels for the back on the Divco out of parts from a Varian spectrometer. Made the gas pedal from an old aluminum ice cream scoop. Found out later it was my wifes grandmas anitque and collectable scoop.... Sure looks cool in my truck.
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I'm always on the lookout for interesting pieces of aluminum or stainless to make custom trim panels. The insert in this underdash radio box cover is scrounged trim from an old refrigerator.

A paramedic buddy of mine gave me an aluminum baby strecher (backboard), had a nice patterned panel, built a custom battery box and some other pieces out of it.
Was kinda creepy having it around.

 

Wasnt near Roswell was it ?

 

Late 60's truck door panels for floor board repairs, road sign for floor boards. Made a sandblasting cabinet out of an old washing machine. Still have it, still use it...

 

After I cut the front clip off the 81 Monte Carlo for my Pontiac, I went down the street and got the cut-off tongue from one of my neighbor's modular homes, trimmed it up and welded it to the stubs of the subframe left on the Monte Carcass and towed it over to the wrecking yard (60 miles) like a trailer.

 

I've used an aluminum bread pan as the outside of a heater unit on my '68 El Camino. Friends laughed and still chide me about it. They never worked on a car in an emergency, and they consider themselves worldly.

 

After reading these posts, I guess using a new sheet of 18 ga. steel was strange.

 

This is not that strange for farm boys; early Ford/Ferguson tractor rad shrouds will work on a deuce/A rad with some modificaton.

 

Base commander's parking sign for a built up area for shifter boot.

 

Always on the look out for interesting shapes.keeping a eye to this post.