i came up with this grill for my 36 ford pickup and in the end it ended up looking like a 36 ford passenger car grill. its proportionally fits the front of the truck perfectly. now here my questions. should i try and find a 36 car grill and cut it down? even tho its looks similar im really not sure of how much use i could get out of a 36 car grill is there anything that works well to make the vertical v shape bars? im sure i can make ths thing, just the bars are whats stopping me. i want it to look like a stock grill when im done, but i also to want to spend hundreds of hours cutting strips of steel and v bending them all. any other ideas? thanks! the headlights are 36 chevy
If you made some plywood bucks to fit your form, bought or stole a planishing hammer, a plasma cutter, a box/pan brake, a shear, some 18 ga. steel and some polished 22 ga. stainless steel...it would be a snap and look cool as hell.
i just found a 36 ford "cold front " it would be just about what you need i;ll try and add pic of it for ya
are you set on the v shape. i was going to make a 36 grille for my buddies car out of 1/8"x1/2" stainless and bend it to shape. might look to much like a billet grille for you though.
I am considering making a grill and I was thinking of going with angle iron (or aluminum) and having the intersection face forward like this: ^^^, if that makes sense. What's that thing bolted on top of the front crossmember? Thanks, Kurt
oh man the dream tool list. im going to try to do it with limited tools, the sheet metal part im not to worried about just the bars. cool thanks! ya that was another option, i just want the older look. it was origionally for my truck, but its too tall to line up and look right, and it been done too much. ill save it for another project, or if someone wants to trade for a good 36 grill.
that would be different. the thing ontop of the crossmember is a stewart warner heater that i gutted and turned in to a cover so you can't really see the cone filter.
Just an idea,but'67-72 chevy PU front fender corners could help get that shape at the top. When I do something like this, I always look and see what the patch panels they're selling out there these days can do for me.
thanks, same here im always looking at curves and shapes of all types of vehicles to see what i could use off of it. steel inner fender wells work good also
All I can offer is please try to stick to your concept. What you have so far is great! I hope someone chimes in with a way to make it all come to life. Very inspiring.
I really like your design. If I were you, I'd probably build two. The first one would be made out of mild steel and the final one would be out of stainless. Will the bars be vertical or horizontal? Have you thought about using round stock rather than flat to make the grill? With that, you could use a larger diameter round stock as the vertical center bar of the grill, then drill it to accept each of the smaller diameter horizontal bars from each side. If all of the bars are vertical like the center piece, then just drill the top and bottom ones to accept the vertical bars. If you scroll down to some of the later pics, there are photos of our grill that we built recently: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=280939&highlight=40+chevy&showall=1 Now, that grill was rounded, so you can use a slip roller to form it or make bucks to bend it or weld a form onto a table and use a torch and bend it. But bucks and forms can be used to make a V shape as well. If you want yours to be sharp (like the v in angle iron) then it will be a little trickier to look nice. If you would, post a pic (a closeup pic) of a 36 ford grill so that we could look at it. I hope my crappy explaination is of some help. If not, PM me and I'll give you my cell phone number.
Straight grill bars of almost any shape can be made in a bead roller with special dies. Curved bars are a little harder but can be done also. Cut strips the width you need to make the bars and put an initial bend in the strip so it will start into the forming dies. Depending on the shape it may take several passes through the dies to get the shape you want. The hardest part of making a grill is making the bars that support and hold the bars where you want them. Joe
What about 1/4" stainless tubing? Run it thought a set of slip rolls to crush the tubing to form an oval shape. Then you should be able to bend it any way you want. Front the outside it looks very similar to a 32 Ford grill bar. Then silver solder it all together. It's a pain to make everything straight.
Here are a couple of picture of the one I built using stainless tube but as inline said you could flatten out the tube to give you an oval shape. I used a wood buck to bend the tubing and Tig'ed it together but I probably could have screwed it together as well but it would have been alot more work. Ron Covell did a three part series in Street Rodder a few years back on making a grill from stainless.
thanks for the compliment! makes me want to get it done even more! pretty much that i thought i was gonna have to end up doing, but the oval bar idea may not look to bad at all. that looks reall good. i think im gonna go this route after seeing it but just use the oval bar idea. thanks for the help everyone! ill post pics as i work on it!
There was some discussion on making grille bars on MetalMeet a few weeks back: http://www.metalmeet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11558&highlight=grille You might get some ideas there.
i like the mockup better then a 36. i have a 36 grille on mine. come over to metalmeet.com and we`ll see if we can`t find someone near you that has a planishing hammer or e-wheel that you can use to help make that surround. as far the bars, the stainless tubing that was flattened in the article by ron covell really looked great. gary
thanks man! ill sign up in there, there is a metal god in my area who has all of the tools id need, i know him pretty good too, he's just so busy. he might be on that forum, his name is jim bailie.
I'm not sure if Jim is on Metalmeet but he is definitely on Metalshapers www.allshops.org. He has some amazing albums on his work and the tools he has built.
are you talking about jim bailie ??? if you are , that guys real talented, ask him to come over to metalmeet once in a while. gary
If you start with a real '36 grille, you won't have that angle upwards like your prototype. They are flat on top.
for the very top if i were to use a real grill i was thinking of making the top out of the front of a hood.
right but top edge of the '36 grille is horizontal and parallel to the ground. Your mock up is swept up. That would take alot of effort for a real '36 grille to do that.
So I was sitting there staring at it and I said fack it I'm just gonna start making it. more to come.
66elcam Don't forget to stop by the Tim Horton's a x-large double/double ? coffee. I've been very fortunate to meet JB in person and chat via the phone and internet many times. I was going to mention if you have a shrinker/stretcher, make some long "L" shaped strips. Shrink or stretch to a suitable curve, this will give you a guide. from there fill in with metal or more strips. tt
lol, i usually get a large double double on my way to work every morning. Jim is a very nice guy, my dad has done some work with him, my fav was a custom 55 buick for Larry Erickson. thanks for the tips!
http://tuccihotrods.com/projects.html Dave Tucci did a round tube grille for the '35 he built a few years back. Each tube was squashed into an oval then curved by hand. I really like the shape of the mock up you have, but I wasn't expecting the top piece to go down that far. I thought the grille bars would wrap that top curve a bit, then blend in to some sort of 'cap'. Great start though! I love the air cleaner cover, too... it was the first thing I saw in the first picture. Ha, I'm surprised nobody noticed the model in the background!
The Jalopy Journal
