Lol Now that the easy part is done I get to try not to mess up the insert part . I borrowed a friends shop to use his pexto bead rollers and bead rolled a whole pile of parts. some are prestretched on the planisher, some arent. To be honest o don’t think it made a difference. I only rolled these after making about 10 different cardboard templates. Had I actually been smart I would have done this bit first and not the gloveboxes. That way I could have just made a whole lower dash bead. Now I have to work around them and blend a deep bead ugh.
Now that I selected one I like, I cut away the s-shaped parts leaving the semi flat bottom which I carefully hammered down , then I filled in the rest with curved pieces I made, then I cut out just the proud of the bead on the dash so I could lay my parts and scribe for my cuts.
Normally I weld from the center outward when making my tacks, but these tricky bead blends made me break the rules and tack center, then the beads. The result was a buckle that led to an oil can. I broke the tacks on the buckled side and sanded the edge, then planished the remaining tacks and started over. What followed was a misery most sheet metal guys know. Long straight flat welds. I moved around and cooled each weld with compressed air. I also planished a little as a went. It came out about as good as I could hope for so I moved on to cutting out about 90% of everything I just welded hahahaha
Hole saws, hand files and strong coffee. The new pice required I make a new column drop extension piece. My original 32 column drop is super nice with Hurd keys, so molesting it or swapping the drop is just not going to happen.
Nice work, plus I was wondering how big the Hollywood gauge panel was compared to a deuce dash. Have the same panel going in my A coupe. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Not criticizing but just a question. You are so very talented in metal work why use wood flooring? Unless they are just patterns?
Super cool project, Nate. Thank you for sharing all of the photos of the detailed work. I'm looking forward to following along for the rest of it!
2 reasons. There’s a deep recess in the floors , so if I did do metal the right way I think would be to raise the sheet metal as high as the stock floor. Reason #2 is as much as I hate working with wood, the 32 ford used wood front floors, and I like keeping some original style charm. After all , I like early fords not early Nate’s
Nate, Dash is going to be killer.. what gauges do you have planned for the center panel. ? great thread and great build. @heyitsnate
As already stated, great craftsmanship. And your metal capabilities from thought process to an actual functioning part is above and beyond. Hats off to ya.