First I want to start off and say some of these photos may be a bit hard to understand exactly what's going on, it's tough to capture things in pictures always.
I finally started fabricating some sheet metal. I've re-designed and built the passenger roof rail side structure. Most of this component will never be seen (either hidden under the roof skin or behind the headliner / upholstery) The only part visible later will be the weather strip area and the bottom face of the rail.
Basically, the rail structure is a box fabricated out of overlapping individual pieces:
1. Because that's the best way I know how to fabricate it with my knowledge and available equipment.
2. The overlapping joints allowed the use of plug welding and added necessary strength and rigidity.
I'll try to explain and make some sense of the buildup of the rail and my pictures to follow.
The first individual part to form was a 90 that was shaped to the side profile of the wooden side window template as well as the curvature of the glass that will be used. (Here just set into place to check the fit to the buck)
This piece will actually be what the roof skin edge attaches to eventually, and most importantly is the top of the future weather strip channel (I've redesigned the roof rail since we've removed the door tops and the car will be a hardtop now)
I created a paper pattern and cut out four matching side pieces (2 for passenger rail and 2 for the driver rail)
The bottom face or "U" channel was fabricated next. Initially I was going to try this in one piece, but realized before I started that I wouldn't be able to get the narrow channel in my shrinker / stretcher jaws. So it was shaped out of two individual 90 deg. pieces, scribed to the correct width and fully butt welded together as this is the only face of the rail that will be visible when finished.
Here's looking down the length of the lower "U" channel showing the curve necessary to fit the curved glass.
This picture may be a bit hard to understand.
The left piece is a blank side (inner part of rail)
The middle piece is the bottom "U" channel punched with holes for plug welding.
The piece on the right is another side piece with the 90 flange for the roof / weather strip plug welded to it.
Here you can see the side pieces have been set inside the lower "U" channel and plug welded. The overlaps are fine because the outer will be hidden behind the weather strip and the inner one will be behind the headliner / upholstery.
Also notice I created an upper "U" channel much like the bottom one except this was done with a lap joint plug welded together. This was faster as well as doubling up certainly didn't hurt the strength of it. This will be tucked up under the roof skin so it will also never be seen later.
Here the sides and bottom "U" component have been punched for all the plug welding. The top "U" channel slips in between each side piece (unlike the bottom "U" that went on the outside of each side piece. I did this so I could "squeeze" and clamp the side pieces onto the top channel for the plug welds.
This picture is basically looking at the top and inside face of the roof rail. Just finished all the plug welds for the upper channel. As you can see, a person can never use too many clamps to hold things properly in alignment!
I cleaned up all the welds and the weld thru primer (The gold colored coating shown in previous pictures)
This is looking at the outer side face and the attached 90 flange for the roof edge and upper weather strip surface.
Looking down the length of the rail you can see the curvature of the glass was maintained.
With the rail just sitting into position. Transitioning and blending and connecting properly to the windshield post and header will be a future task. I'll also have to slightly modify this rail and the existing windshield post to work with my plans for the front vent glass and frame later.
Again looking from the rear of the car forward you can see the nice curve. It really fits the wooden template (and the actual glass profile nicely)
This is a close up with the weather strip I'll be using set onto the wood buck. You can see how the top fits against the added flange (the inner face fits against the side of the roof rail (there will eventually be an outer edge added later to create the full "U" for the weather strip to fit into properly.
A close up of the weather strip, rail and flange from the front. As mentioned the furthest most forward portion will me modified slightly later since the vent glass frame will need a bit different method used for weather strip.
A view from inside. The front of the rail will be grafted and blended into the windshield post and header (with proper sleeving and jointing where necessary)
One last view of the weather strip fit into position to help visualize it a bit better. It'll make more sense as I progress further along in the project.
Thanks for following along.