NOVACLONE wrote:

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Very nice work Nick, You Got Skills   Thanks for showing us!

-- Edited by NOVACLONE on Friday 14th of September 2012 07:40:15 AM

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 Thanks Novaclone!     Took a serious interest in metal shaping when I was around 19ish...and been playing with it ever since.  Way back when I never had the enhlish wheel ... only a bunch of hammers and dollies...and basically learned how metal reacted as I worked(beat) it.  To this day though it'll occationally throw me a curve ball where I stand back thinking what the heck happened.    Soo much still to learn.

Nick you have come a long way from the Blue tarp days looks great keep up the great work so you can start on my 55 Chevy GASSER.Mark

Thanks Guys!

Pieces for the rear hatch are laid out and being prepped for assembly.


Fitting the pieces to the buck and scribing the underside of the dovetail panel so that the vent holes can be cut out.


After cutting out the vent holes, the panel was run though the tipping wheel to brake a starting bend. These bends can now be formed over the buck for a true fit.


Used to torch to heat and massage the corners into place.




Brother in law getting a crash course in metal shaping. Nothing better than diving in with both feet.


Always try to squeeze a little extra in at the end of the day...usually with a mockup panel or creating some templates. Here the front compartment got mocked up with some left over scraps of corrugated cardboard...


Transposing the templates onto sheet metal.




Guess it was a few days later when these panels for the front compartment were shaped...didn't have the camera around to get some shots. Now they need to be welded and finished. Next thing to tackle are those big holes in the hood...

With the metal shaping for the front compartment coming to an end and the troughs along the side redone(wasn't happy with the first go of narrow troughs) it was time to start fitting all the body pieces together.

I started by fitting the tops of the rear 1/4's to the buck. A few areas were in need of a massage until it 'felt' relaxed in place.


Our Body Caliper was set up to measure and compare both sides for symmetry.


I was quite pleased to see that the consistency of the panel curvature came out this well. That includes the outer curvature. The curvature was checked in relation to each other on both sides at 5" increments.


Thanks for following along.

hemi43 wrote:

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So THAT's what CAD stands for !! Carboard aided design !!

Geez I'd like to come down and see your setup, but I dread that drive across Toronto.

 

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 Hey Hemi, it's funny that you bring up Cardboard Aided Design.  Here's a little tutorial I did for someone a while ago using a piece of cardboard to model the fabrication of a structural body component.

Second more accurate template created from the first mockup piece.


Flanges marked out and tipped.






After tipping the flanges the panel takes on a totally wrong curvature.


Need to turn to the Shrinker/Stretcher to correct the curves.




Shrinks just like metal...almost. It bounces back a little. Good enough for a template though.


Some more stretching...


Touching up the panel's complex curvature with the wheel and an appropriate lower anvil. The pressed paper does compress enough to mimic sheet metal.


Ready to check the fit.


Doesn't fit too bad...with a few vice grips holding it in place.


Enough craziness for now..

Creating a hammer-form for the gas filler housing. An adjustable compass bracket was fabricated to create various sizes of circles with the router.


Centre area plunged through.


Creating another pieces with a slightly different size and profile.




Starting with flat circular blanks of sheet metal cut from scraps and centred over the form the edges are slowly rolled over the hammer form. The inset was then created later.


Hammer form works great and the top/bottom pieces came out very well.


Next step will be to create a sleeve and join the upper and lower pieces together.

Thanks for following along! 

48poncho wrote:

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fantastic work i always look forward to your posts

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 Thanks 48poncho!   

This project's style isn't exactly a custom or a hot rod like most of the members have here on the site.  But, the techniques used to build it are transferable as a lot of the guys who stop by with parts to be custom made have seen.  

I appreciate the entusiasm you all are sharing.   

Thanks DavyJ 

Here we go with some work on fitting the glass and creating door hinge mounts.

Testing the fit of the new windscreen. With the new windscreen on hand, final sheet metal fitting can be completed. After paint...we're after just under a 3/16" gap between the body and the glass.


Getting started on some more of the inner structural components. Finger brake being used to create one of the seemingly few straight line bends for the door hinge posts.


Comparing the bent door hinge profile to the template created earlier.


After a trial piece is created and tweaked(left) the real components can be fabricated. The posts are mirror opposites...so we needed to ensure the bends were made on the correct sides.


Door hinge post sitting on the A-pillar web


A-pillar webs taking shape.


Thanks for looking.

NOVACLONE wrote:

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Wow Nick,thats just friggin' fantastic work! LOL I use my Cheerios boxes for gasket material!!!      John

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 Thanks very much for the thumbs up John! 

I'm with you with using them for gaskets.  Hammer out required gasket...slap on a little aviation gasket goo..and boom insta-gasket.  Work great on just about anything ...well except exhaust manifolds.. HAH!

Wow    I've never seen this craftsmanship before...   I didn't see the first car...  

Do you do this for a living ?  or are you a millionaire with nothing to do? 

I have trouble, putting my parts back on my S10 (took apart for paint) 4 months ago    

You must be related to the Engergizer Bunny.....................

Work on the roof's structure had to be wrapped up before anything could be started within the interior.  And I was really itching to step out of my comfort zone to get into the interior and start carving/shaping the foam panels(the fun part) that would facilitate as plugs for composite panels(not soo fun).  I've never done composite work to this degree before so I wasn't sure if things were going to turn out as I was planning.

So, after tweaking, installing and tweaking the roof's main structural components some more, the corners were trimmed back and finalized with additional pieces.


Vertical corner filler pieces created, clamped, and tacked into place.




This pretty much finished up the body shell ... for now.

Before any interior work could begin, I had to get the doors temporarily mounted to the shell..without hinges... so that interior panel plugs could be accurately created. Fixtures were fabricated attaching the doors to the shell after they were properly spaced.


More to come..

I am In!  Would love to see that !

The interior starts as a blank canvas with the medium changing from forming sheet metal to shaping foam(at least for a little while). The process will involve creating a basis for molds from foam, bondo and clay.





Temporary structural bracing created to hold the dash plug.


Table-saw pulled out to cut up the material for the interior.


Wood grain finish on that dash. Actually it's the beginnings of the plug for the dash created by up-cycling some remnants of plywood left over from another project. Foam will be glued to it...then shaped to the final profile.


Interior plugs are all set to go.

Thanks for checking out the build guys.

Thats awesome!    making it float is a cool idea...    unsinkable?  

Thanks for the thumbs up guys! 

Work continues on the interior.

Most of the braces have been removed. A few voids were spray foamed and preliminary feature lines sketched in with a Sharpie.


This is one of my favorite times in the vehicle building process - taking the design from 2D to 3D. After key design dimensions have been translated to the foam and I can visualize the interior’s final shape in my head, I start carving and shaping it until it feels ‘right’. In the background you can see our ‘down draft’ dust collector running ... pushing the particulate down from the immediate working area.


Various flexible straightedges are used to assist in roughing in the main features. Shaping the main dash area begins.


Moving onto the rear wall. Adhesive wasn’t applied to certain pieces, as it was easier to shape them separately. Once close, they can be permanently fixed.


40Grit moves a lot of material … fast. So care needed to be taken to bring the entire driver’s side area down as a whole.


Driver’s side area just about done. A few things to fine tune…but only after the passenger side has been completed.


Final touches to the interior plugs. Sprayfoam is being applied to some of the voids. Once dried the excess will be trimmed away and sanded for a smooth finish.


Thanks for checking out the build guys.