Corvette/Scarab

[Scrap maker]

So after finishing my hand fabbed 32 roadster body i had nothing to do... So i bought a CL special, 74 vette 4spd/350 cheap. Sawzall and sell the glass and now working on mock up of a late 50's style road race car for the street. The corvette club won't let me in????? More to come.. Ray

[barry larson]

Ray
Good way to get started....keep us poasted....how did the 32 come out ? hi boy ?
Barry Larson

[Superleggera]

Henry P. (RIP) who was a good friend of many of us here in the Northwest was Reventlow's truck driver and team wrench. He drove in the USA and in Europe before he got tired of living the life of racing. Here are two of his pictures found in an old shoebox at his place many years ago.

Please do the coachwork in aluminum when you build it!

[Scrap maker]

Wow! thanks for the Scarab pics.
The big problem i have to solve is my size. @ 6'7" the vette tub is the smallest i can fit in. I need to upsize the whole body to kinda make it work. The race windshield on the race cars were made to wear a helmet. I'm making a street car. I got a bunch to figure out and make it work. May end up looking scarab/lister/viper.ish?????????????? .......Ray

[Kerry Pinkerton]

Lessons learn from my roadster build:

1- Have a hard buck that gives you basic surface boundaries, not just FSPs

2- Model the design first. I'd get a model corvette and carve a body that looks like you want. You can slice the model up and scale up for stations on the bucks.

I'm very much looking forward to your project. Should be a great one. I'll agree with Mark...do it in aluminum.

[Scrap maker]

Yes i also would like to do the body in aluminum. I have done most my car body fab in 20/22 gauge steel and fiberglass and can shape aluminum but no way to stick it together. I have a mini torch and years ago i did some tig welding aluminum but no longer have the welder or the skill.......... I have a buddy that visited the place where they built the Cobra bodies in the 80's. He said they used a propane mix because it was cooler to do their gas aluminum work.
Yes I can buy a tig if needed but would need to get unrusty. I know plenty of guy's with nice tig's that are good at it and if i tacked it together they could do a better job then me welding it up. Any thoughts on this subject of kind of aluminum, thickness,rod selection and gas welding would be a help. Thanks, Ray

[Jere]

Ray:

I worked in that building with the brick wall from 1963 through 1966 while working for Shelby. The portion with the bamboo shade was the machine shop where Malen Lamero worked and the sender block portion to the left was the dyno.

When Peter Brock started designing the Daytona Coupe he had Ken Miles get comfortably situated in a mock up chassis and started taking measurements from there. Ken was much taller than Dan Gurney or Dave MacDonald ( you can see this being done on page 93 of the book Carol Shelby by Dave Friedman).

If you are having a problem welding your aluminum I am teaching welding at my shop in Willits. Two day classes for steel and two day classes for aluminum. I have bin welding aluminum since 1963 with O/A and now use and teach with the Cobra ( Hen-Rob) torch. I spent some time with Ron Covell at the Santa Cruse meet and he is now using my method.

Feel free to give me a call at 1-707-459-2523.

[David Gardiner]

Originally Posted by Scrap maker

Yes i also would like to do the body in aluminum. I have done most my car body fab in 20/22 gauge steel and fiberglass and can shape aluminum but no way to stick it together. I have a mini torch and years ago i did some tig welding aluminum but no longer have the welder or the skill.......... I have a buddy that visited the place where they built the Cobra bodies in the 80's. He said they used a propane mix because it was cooler to do their gas aluminum work.
Yes I can buy a tig if needed but would need to get unrusty. I know plenty of guy's with nice tig's that are good at it and if i tacked it together they could do a better job then me welding it up. Any thoughts on this subject of kind of aluminum, thickness,rod selection and gas welding would be a help. Thanks, Ray

My advice is don't use tig for ally. You will not get a good finish easily and it tends to crack when dressed out. Gas welding ally is not hard to learn if you have experience with tig and O/A on steel you can do gas aluminium welding. It would not be possible to build a body like that without learning to weld the panels. every panel that is put in needs to be dressed out before the next one is welded in place. I know you said you were tall but I am sure there is a limit to even your reach.. It would not be practical to have to get someone over to finish weld every section before you could dress it out and move on the the next section. I show a little gas welding aluminium on my youtube footage.

I think that this is a great project and I am sure you can do it. I agree with Kerry you need to build a buck and the body would be nice in aluminium bit if you are not prepared to learn how to gas weld ally you should do it in steel.

James my employee had never welded ally so I showed him the process and told him to go and practice for a couple of hours expecting he would need several weeks of a couple of hours here and there but he could do it as good as me by the end of the two hours!.

In answer to your question about material thickness, most bodies like that would have been made from 16g ally. Race cars may have been made from 18G or even 19g. Some road going bodies were made from 18g but it is harder to work in the thinner materials so I suggest you use 16g.

David

[Scrap maker]

.In answer to your question about material thickness, most bodies like that would have been made from 16g ally. Race cars may have been made from 18G or even 19g. Some road going bodies were made from 18g but it is harder to work in the thinner materials so I suggest you use 16g.

.Thanks for the good advice, is the ally a 5052? or somthing else. And what is a good compatible filler rod? Thanks, Ray

[Jere]

Ray:

The material would be 3003 and welded with 1100.

As for material thickness. Things to consider are, finished car weight - figure the weight of 3 sheets of 18ga and then figure 3 sheets of 16ga.

Next would be how much shape is in the panels - more shape = more strength.

Then how many people are going to be leaning on the front fender while looking under the hood at the power plant? Most people don't know not to lean on or sit on a car.