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Old 05-08-2009, 08:47 PM
Kerry Pinkerton's Avatar
Kerry Pinkerton Kerry Pinkerton is offline
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Join Date: May 2009
Location: Near Huntsville, Alabama. Just south of the Tennessee line off I65
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Default The Art Deco Imperial Project - Part 23

THE ART DECO ROADSTER PROJECT
10/22/08
Quote:
Originally Posted by adtkart
... Now you just have to get the other side to match.

You mean like this:



I had a couple hours so I whipped it out.

Yeah RIGHT! This side is "art". Duplicating it will be skill and craftsmanship. Everyone will soon know if I'm a real metalshaper. Won't be anywhere to hide.

Seriously, Mark Savory (Superleggra) did some photoshop magic and sent this to me. I can play around with Kerry Draw and get a sence for what various things will look like. SO MANY decisions and things to consider. Most of them can have a great impact on how things turn out.
10/24/08
Quote:
Originally Posted by adtkart
I'll bet that is a real challenge to wheel that fender once it is all welded together. How many people does it take to keep from bending it all up?

Aaron



Aaron, all the shape makes it really non-floppy. That said, I'll probably finish it with hammer/dolly. It will be faster than building a new special purpose wheel and I need the practice.

Mark Savory has done some more photoshop magic. This rear view is minus the fairing but includes some period type taillights.




The side view has wire wheels and is also sans fairing but does include the lengthened decklid.

Thanks Mark. Those will really help.


12/2/08
I've been busy with some non-metalshaping projects and finally had some time to do metal work.

The first thing I want to do is finish the front fender so I can start on the other side. First order of business is to clean up all the welds and get the shape right. There is a lot of hand work involved in this but I've also used a hand held planishing hammer to stretch the weld beads. The aluminum moves so easy that I can't do much with the Phammer or it will overstretch.

What you're looking at here are the file marks left from vixen files. This particular area is really close. Every time I take the fender off the car it gets bumped or dinged so I'm not going to make it ready for paint until I'm actually ready to paint



Here you can see some highs and lows. The lows are just barely low and it wouldn't take much to file down or bump them up but for what I need now, this is close enough.



The plan is to finish the fender including the lip to the hood flange and tipping the wheel opening. Then I can take a flexible shape pattern as well as make some bondo and wire stations. Once that is done, the other fender can be started.

I've got the rest of the sheet metal off the car. I'm going to redo the rear shock mounts. At MM08 we raised the rear ride height by adjusting the coil overs but they are near the limit of their adjustment so I'm going to lengthen the mounts and put the coil overs back where they can be tweeked up or down a little and still have adjustment.

Most the panels we did at MM08 were not really finished when I welded them together and I knew that at the time. However, I really wanted to get them together so the folks who had worked so hard on them (and me too) could see the big picture when the panels were put together. In retrospect that may not have been the best way to do it but if I had it to do over again, I'd probably still do it the same way because it was so much fun seeing it coming together even if it will mean more work to bump the fender into shape.

When I finally get to the other side, I'll be doing several things differently (and hopefully better). This has been a significant learning process for me. 12/16/08
Some progress

I've actually be working on some stuff on the car. I traded the Clifford intake for an Offy and had to build a hot water system for it. Installed now and seems to run fine. Has a slightly different sound than the Clifford...not sure how it's different but it seems different.

Still working on getting the right front fender finished. Several things to do, first was putting the flange on the inside top so it can be mounted to the structure. I bent an angle and shaped it to match the coke bottle swoop of the structure, scribed, and tacked in place.



Once it was all welded up, I ground the inside weld. While I had it secure and upside down, I finished cleaning up all the inside welds. I just realized there are 16 sub panels in this thing! I think I should probably have done it in two major pieces and may yet split it down the valley.... We'll see.



I haven't ground down the outer edge yet. Tomorrow hopefully. While I was working on it, she fell off the table and put a nice dent on the top...of course it was where I had spent a good bit of time bumping. I think the moral of this story is that I'm not going to do the final hammer and dolly work until I'm almost ready for paint.


12/27/08
Finally some time in the shop. Seems like it's been something every day and then when I finished there wasn't enough time to justify turning on the heat or whatever...

Anyway, yesterday I started on the bottom front of the fender. I've been looking at it for a few weeks trying to decide what line I wanted it to take and finally got it marked out and was satisfied with it.

The inside part was done with primarily the hotdog die and the ewheel. It was a fairly simple reverse but it was a changing radius thing and kicked my butt.

But this piece...REALLY kicked my butt!



This is was the center portion and, as you can see, is a double reverse. I didn't use the hotdog dies on this but did it totally with the kick shrinker/stretcher and an Ewheel with some speciality 3x2 anvils (really tight). What was difficult was just fitting it up and tweaking that last little bit to fit. A little shrink made a big movement and I went back and forth several times...too much, too much, dang...

Finally though it came together...took about 3 hours to make the panel and another couple to fit it in and weld.



Still have some filing to do to get the front right and the entire wheel opening will need to be tipped but I'm waiting until I have some help for that. Joe Hartson is coming up fairly soon and we'll do that before we start on the other front fender.

It's kind of interesting how the file marks look like lumps... It's actually much better than it looks in the photo. I can't do over by the nose until I pull the fender tomorrow. This metalfinishing stuff is SLOW! And I'm not remotely shooting for perfection at this point.



This is a fairly low angle view. Without the flash, you won't be able to see the aluminum control arm but if it turns out they are noticable, I'll paint them black.



Still thinking about the headlight and grill but leaning toward XK120 type headlight pods in the valley of the fender. Haven't decided on the grill opening either but lots of time for that.
I had an email asking about engine cooling with that small grill opening.
I understand the concern. The PROBABLE shape of the grill is the dark tape opening but that will probably change somewhat and I'm willing to deal with having to have a special radiator made if necessary. What is in there now is a 65 Mustang V8 AC (3 row). The grill opening is about the same as the surface area of the radiator and I have a fairly aggressive mechanical fan that will be shrouded.

So far, no sign of overheating even without a shroud. I am concerned about stop and go traffic but will have to play it by ear. The engine is not that high performance, especially at idle when it's producing relatively little horsepower. It may or may not have an AC system...haven't decided yet.

I'm more concerned about getting engine compartment heat out of the compartment. I'm most likely going to have some vents on the sides of the fenders. Don't want to louver the hood but that's a last resort option.
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Kerry Pinkerton
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