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Old 05-08-2009, 08:14 PM
Kerry Pinkerton's Avatar
Kerry Pinkerton Kerry Pinkerton is offline
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Location: Near Huntsville, Alabama. Just south of the Tennessee line off I65
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Default The Art Deco Imperial Project - Part 14

THE ART DECO ROADSTER PROJECT
12/18/07
Still working on some of the structure fab but was having a metalshaping withdrawal and it turned cold so I spent the day shaping metal...

What a novel idea! I bet we could build a great internet site about shaping sheetmetal .

Aluminum is hard because it's SOOOO easy. At MM07 Robert Kolenda spent quite a while working on the lower front fender. He'd never worked aluminum and was having a problem was because the aluminum moves SOOOOO fast. He was over stretching then over shrinking and really fighting the panel. When you get down in the 5% range, you have to go really, really slow. Like the old Brylcreme commercial..."Just a little dab will do ya!"

By the time I picked up the piece it was probably 98% and I just had to do some little bitty tweaks, push it into arrangement, and there it was. I decided to work the flexible shape patterns on the inside of the panel so my panels would fit ON the buck.

Once the nosepiece was done and clamped down to the buck, I cut a new piece of aluminum for the outer center. This will be the right (passenger) rear fender. I made a paper pattern, sliced it to lay fairly tight, trimmed it to fit, then laid it on the sheet for a cut pattern. Like most panels, this was stretched in the center over the bag, wheel, and shrunk on the sides. I used the Eckold dies in the kick shrinker although with the .063 aluminum it was toe work not kick work. Very light pushes on the pedal. Did I say it moves REALLY, REALLY fast? This panel took about 3 hours, at least one of them was stretching where I had over shrunk.



The panels fit better than the photos make it appear but I still need to trim for a butt weld and work into arrangement for tacking. I left myself about 3/4" extra material for a wire edge.



I put the fender and decklid bucks back on the car so I could determine how far the metal needed to come down on inside part of the fenders. If you compare this to previous photos, you'll notice the new location of the rear axle is about 2" further back than the original.





The inside metal needs to come about 6" from the center line of the fender. This panel completes the center portion and was made by stretching and some work with the Eckold dies. You can see the scuff marks the Eckold makes in the aluminum but they'll file right out. They are very shallow.

In this photo the two center panels have already been scribed and cut and actually fit together very tightly. It's really hard to hold them in place on the buck.



And here is the nose piece added to the mix. It still needs to be scribed and cut. I think I'm going to weld these up before I start on the rear of the fender.



I still haven't finished cleaning up from the re-construction and things are a mess in the shop. Cleaning up and organizing is just so not fun....I need to get Dan Shady to come organize my shop the next time he has a couple three spare months...
Quote:
Kerry,
I am interested in how you intend to weld the fender panels together.
with a foam buck. Clamping won't work. If you weld with bare alum. it will be very difficult to hold in position.
Paul



I've been kept inside with a cold but hopefully tomorrow I'll get to play again.

The buck has a center plywood component that I can clamp to. This blue foam is fairly dense and I can also put a thin metal foot on top of the clamp to spread the load on the foam. My plan is to put a strip of copper under the seam on top of the bondo, clamp the pieces in place and quickly tack together with the TIG. I'll then pull the metal off the buck and complete the welding.

The buck probably won't like the tacking on it but it only has to last through two fenders. I talked to Randy and discovered he sometimes tacks on his wire and bondo bucks without serious damage to the buck.

That's the plan...we'll see if it works.
12/23/07 Finally, the first sheet metal panels go together. The structure is not complete but I just had to shape some metal.

I am a rank amature at TIG and especially aluminum TIG.

Wanted to try a test piece so I got a cut off piece from the panel and sliced it in the HF Beverly clone...

I used 2% Ceriated tungsten instead of Thoriated. I set my Miller Dynasty at 90 amps, 120 CPS, 75% balance, 18 CFH gas flow with 10 second post flow with a 3/32 tungsten. I used 1/16" diameter 1100 rod. I watched Covells TIG welding DVD last week while I was feeling poorly just to get my head back into it.

Here is the top side.

And the bottom...the copper strip really makes a difference!


A little off the top with a flap disk and a few wipes with a lead file..



Nice, full penetration, and supple. I bent it in a full circle and back with no cracking. Time for the real thing!



I made this little stand to hold my post dollys. The small football is one that Bob Erison made. The stand is heavy and stable enough that it's easy to use and still move around the welding table.



Here is the tacked seam. Because one side was deeper than the other it was a bear to hold. Since I have to do a bunch of these style panels I need to think about some type of fender holding fixture that has clamps that I can adjust end, out, and at angles to hold things in place.



Here is the final weld from the top. It certainly isn't anything to brag about but I think it will do. I really need to learn to feed the filler rod in real time without having to stop and reset the rod in my hand....



And from the inside. I had a couple spots that didn't have full penetration so I ran a couple hot lines to melt it in.



After a little flap disk work to take the pride off the top of the bead and then some final smoothing with a lead file and scuffing with a DA, here is the result.



Tomorrow afternoon I'll try and weld in the nose piece and start on the rear of the fender.
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