#381
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FINALLY some play time in the shop. Not finished with the remodeling just took a day off.
Welded up the left rear fender top. Marked it while still on the car and clamped it in place. Tacked then TIGged. Ran the TIG torch over the back side to fuse the weld. If I was younger and had better eyes, I'd invest the time to learn to gas weld. I have all the proper equipment I just can see well enough. Then it was time to file the welds down. Used a side grinder with the Aluminum grinding disks to knock the proud down then cleaned up with a bullnose vixen. Clamped and clecoed back in place. Tomorrow I will weld the top piece between the two fender tops and the bottom butt also. I'm going to weld it up as a solid rear clip, then cut it in half in the center. I'll then make a step flange and weld it into one side just like I did on the nose. This is the inside of the nose bottom. You can see the step and where it was welded. The seam will be covered by a piece of stainless which will cover the nutserts and screws holding the two halves together. Tool a long look at my existing rear fenders and decided the right side was OK. The left side however is going to be remade before I weld it to the new metal. It was the first panel I made on the car and both my welding and shaping skills have improved. Because the two fenders didn't match that well, this one got sliced and diced a bit and it's just too patched up for me to ever get over. Good day in the shop.
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Kerry Pinkerton |
#382
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what a fab build how it coming along ?
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David Geelong victoria Australia |
#383
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Hey Kerry: I am glad to see you are getting back into finishing your car. It is to beautiful and you have too much invested in it not to finish it and enjoy cruising in it.
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Mike |
#384
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Took a day off my honey-dos and baby sitting duties to work on the roadster. It's been a while but I really want and NEED to get this done.
Previously, I had welded the four panels that make up the rear cowl, deck sides (or upper rear fenders, and the lower area behind the decklid. The plan is to split them right down the center like was done on the front fenders. There will be a piece of trim that covers the seams and will run nose to tail. Here is the nose of the roadster that was done this way. The clecos are holding the two sides together. Bottom view showing the step and the bottom of the clecos. The first thing to do was lay out the cut line. I wanted a 1/4" offset so I laid a piece of 3/4" tape against the true center line, then laid a piece of 1" tape over that resulting in the 1/4 offset line. I cut some strips and using offset dies in the bead roller, made up some lap material. Btw, this is a bead roller frame made by John 'Boogiemanz' Brown. It uses 1" shafts and most my tooling is modified HF dies enlarged to 1" and cut for a 1/4" keyway. One of these day's I'll power it but I've been saying that for 8 years now. The cut was made with air shear and trimmed to the line by hand. The new lap pieces were shaped a bit (Bottom shrunk to match the shape of the panel), positioned, clamped and tacked. I put a piece of copper below the seam. I forget how to weld if I don't do it often enough. Way too much proud. This is an ODD shaped panel that. Here it is upside down and I've just fused the back side of the weld. After WAY too much cleanup it is ready to drill for the fasteners. I'll start with clecos but ultimately there will be nutserts that tie the two panels together. A lot of coach built cars from the art deco area were simply welded to the structure but I'm too chicken to do that and want to be able to take the individual panels on and off.
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Kerry Pinkerton |
#385
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I like the removable panels. more work but will make other parts of the build so much easier and cleaner!
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Brent Click |
#386
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Great work Kerry, I love art deco cars.
Cheers
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Steve |
#387
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Kerry
A huge project, I am building a full body so I know what patients is required to get through it. I have gone through the whole thread tonight, very interesting I hope I am not out of line here. You are obviously not happy with your welding. One thing that puzzles me your welding is still the same from day one. The amount that you have done its as if you have not changed your technique to get into the groove. Looking at the bead you may have to much torch angle and to fast ,you seem to be struggling to stay on line. For full peno I stand the torch up and go slower and less rod, it will come out pretty flat. A keyhole in the pool is what you are looking for, then you keep enough amps on to maintain it but don't let it get to big and don't let it close up It can be surprisingly liquid under the torch. You mentioned your eye sight, I work at about 10-12" max, buy some glasses that let you work at that distance, you will find it makes a difference, you need to look for the key hole. Your pools are inconsistent usually due to torch hand speed and wire feed, it has to be like a robot, If you have a constant torch speed but adjust the pool by more or less on the throttle pedal. When I weld have a metronome in my head and that is for my wire feed speed, but the torch hand always stays the same speed. You need to rest your torch hand on the job to stop the movement, I use a ply square with a formica covering because it slides like ice on the sheet and I don't get drag. Again I apologise if I am out of line but you readily admit you are not happy with your tigging. If its all to do with vision get the glasses , if you cant see it you cant weld it. Just trying to help. Jim
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Nothing is to hard its just how much time you want to give it. Last edited by ozi jim; 07-03-2013 at 07:36 AM. |
#388
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Thanks for the suggestions, I'll certainly try them. And I'm absolutely NOT offended in the least. 90% of what I know is because some made suggestions to me.
Getting old (and old eyes) is not for wusses. EVERYTHING gets more difficult. Even with cheater lenses. That said, my welding has improved greatly since I started the roadster but still has miles to go. Dutch Comstock told me when I first started TIGging aluminum that the difference in a welder and a good welder is 2000 hours. I figure I've got about 1825 hours to go! One of the main reasons I'm going to re-do the back of the left rear fender is because I'm not happy with the way the welds came out. I've pretty well figured out how to keep control of the panels as I weld. If I can master not getting as much proud, I'll be happy. I'm never going to be that great at it. I just got too late a start.
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Kerry Pinkerton |
#389
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Good to see you are getting some work done on this project (again)!
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• me: Mark • home: Dry Heat, Arizona USA • quote: What did you design or build today? • projects: Curve Grande and the 11Plus Le Mans Coupe |
#390
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On the previous rear end, I had a monumental screw up with the decklid. I had not thought through the shape of the opening and made the decklid a straight line. What this did was cause the decklid to hit the deck at the mid point because the deck is curved. If I had thought a bit, I would have realized that most the old cars I've owned don't have a straight line for the decklid top. DUH!
This time, I wanted to lay out the decklid before I got carried away. I took a sweep that matched the profile of the deck, aligned it carefully, and marked the edge. Then I marked the bottom with the same sweep radius. A flexible rule marked the sides and I put a nice radius on the corners. With this profile, the decklid should match the profile of the deck as it raises and not actually touch...regardless of where the hinges are placed. The excess metal will be removed and a 1/2" deep flange will be bent down and shrunk/stretched to the correct profile. The 'kerry draw' image below shows my plan for the decklid weatherstrip trough. The deck is on the left with the flange bent down. Using a series of small angles, I'll shrink and stretch them to match and either rosette weld them together to form the trough or use panel adhesive. The decklid with the hemmed edge is on the right and the square with the X in it is the weatherstrip rubber. Years ago, I was attempting to repair the same part on one of my cars and discussed how it could be made with the group. Wray Schelin and Dutch Comstock suggested this approach because of the complexity of the shape and the difficulty in trying to match profiles. I purchased the weather strip a few years back and I need to dig it out and make sure the angles are the correct size. On another note, last week the new parts were removed and the shape tweeked a bit. I've discovered a significant challenge in attempting to finish these large ungainly panels. They are just too complex shapes and too awkward to work easily in any of my Ewheels. I'm afraid most the finessing will have to be done with hand tools. I may try to use my handheld planishing hammer on some areas but will need to be really careful not to distort the aluminum. These are really complex shapes. I am extremely impressed by Nick M's (Invision) work in areas like this. The details are HARD!!!!!
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Kerry Pinkerton |
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