vintage rear fender

[redoxide]

Rear fender for 33 austin original was toast so decided to make another, Ive never made one before but have asked about the manufacture of this fender on the old metalmeet forum.

decided tonight to just do it.

I cut some material from a sheet of 20 gauge steel.

I didnt make any patern of any kind, just fliped the old fender face down onto the new sheet and scribed around the wheel arch.

I then took a pair of calipers and set these to 10mm laying the point of the caliper on the scribed line I followed it around the first line marking out the folded lip of the fender.

Then opened out the calipers from the edge of the wing to the width of the fender edge detail, then scribed this onto the new panel.

then measured the original fender to see where the curve of the vertical face began ( about 3 inches ) again set the caliper and scribed this onto the new panel.

I then cut the panel fom the sheet with an electric shear, and trimmed it to the outside scribe lines.

then I tipped the inner edge then using the manual swager ( which I realy must fit a wheel to and get shot of the crank handle) then swaged the detail on the fender edge.

then cut a strip 8 inch wide for the top area of the fender, this was lightly wheeled to introdce a slight crown and then gas welded to the outer edge I had just made.

I took this tip from the Dave Gardiner vid ... I welded the two sections together so the fender had a sharp right angle from the side to the top.

I then took a suitably crowned dolly layed it under the weld area and hammered the weld seam to form a nice curve on the edge of the fender.

In all I have less than 2 hours in this rear fender so far.. only did it as a practise piece but it might shape up fine to be the actual part..

will post finnsh pics hopefully tommorow , but meantime here are some i progress pics...

maybee a bit basic for the seasoned shaper but might be usefull for a beginner like myself..

[Joe Hartson]

Very nice job on the fender and not much time to do it. I am impressed.

Yes I agree nice job & fast time Danny.

[David Gardiner]

Hi Ian,

I am glad to see you have used some of the techniques from my DVD for this, now you can see that my methods speed things up quite a bit. Did you use the welding technique I show because this will ensure a very easy surface to finish.

I have made several of these wings using the same methods

Well done
David

[redoxide]

Thanks for the encouragement folks.

Dave I used the welding technique you showed as much as possible, probably used more wire, this 20g stuff is pretty thin and i probably didnt tack it as much as i should have, but thats all part of the learning curve for this kind of stuff.. loving every minute of it..Ive used a few of the techniques you showed in the dvd, just need to practise practise practise..

[David Gardiner]

Ian, being in England like you I find that if I order 1mm I get steel of a consistant thickness but if I order 20g I get sent allsorts!. 1mm is somewhere near 19 g which is ideal. If you use a no 1 tip you should find it preaty easy, the method I show for creating the curved radius which you have used here works best if you weld it with gas and no filler rod but like you say it just takes practice.

David