Very good eye sir. Yes I did have a hub motor in the hack but I moved it to the rear wheel of the bike since it didn't handle well. Steve.
The first hints of progress on my cyclecar have been made this weekend. A 500cc Honda 4 cylinder just came into my life for the low price of $35. So I guess that's what I'll use as an engine (for now). I hear it's a bit of a dog on the torque side though, so I'll probably include a multi-speed differential for helping get up to speed. And for reverse. I like the styling on that Wedgewood Special. I'll have to ask DMV if those pictures are proof enough of 'production' to allow me to build a 'replica' 1925 Wedgewood Roadster. Speedy Steve: Awesome work, I love the sidecar rig! I havn't even emailed a pic to my mother yet and she already wants one, I can feel it. I can see where having the drive hub on the sidecar would make for some pretty interesting torque-steer issues, the rear wheel sounds like a much better plan for when you want to not hit things.
Banjeaux Bob, I'll do that for sure. TheOldFox, If I get down your way I'll tell you the story about the 3 foot deep ditch in front of the house and torque steer. Had to change the wheel and a key part of my wardrobe after that trip.
Fell over this on my way to work some weeks back.................. turns out it's owned by an old fella who keeps it in a lock up two streets away..........
Thanks for all the cool posts! Do you mean that particular item is owned by someone in S.Africa? To reduce confusion, unless there was some subletting of construction to South Africa, I think the Amilcar was a French built car,
Bob yes (thanks) see it now, as ever ....i'm impatient for information, guess i shoulda waited...... Keith
Bob, Thanks for the great series of "how-to" pictures on that body. That's really important information to have in a thread like this! I've worked with some wood. I bent the 5/8" sides of my truck bed with just hot water sprayed on the outside of the bend and I've made a wood kayak and making another with the same hot water spray to bend 1/2" or larger boards "easy" radii. That looks like it's about 1/4"/8mm and probably wouldn't need steaming. Here are several ways of joining the edges of the boards. http://www.diy-wood-boat.com/Strip-Planking.html That looks like it is probably the last and most time consuming way to get to look right. Lots of small craft are using the bead and cove method lately. Companies are selling cutters for easily making the bead and cove cuts. Yes, It's boat stuff, but it is a "boat tail" car body so the techniques apply.
Sort of how I built the sidcar but without the curves I laid 1/4 inch luan plywood over the frame and then nailed 1/8 thick x1-1/4 wide mahogany strips over that. I helped a friend of mine build a model A boat tailed speedster almost 50 years ago with advice from his boat builder uncle who lived in Nova Scotia. We double planked it as the folks building this body did. Same way they build boats. The mahogany looks as if it was laid down dry since I'm sure that wood that thin being wet would cup like mad as it dried. The edges may have been beveled if they were not shaped as DrJ mentioned. They were clamped into place and nailed. Probably was hand sanded with a flexible long board to smooth out the edges. Sanding with the grain. I was waffling between using plywood for the frames or ash as they did which was the coach builders standard. Probably use ash for it's better nail holding power and strengh. It will also move with the car and not split. Thank you for this wonderful push to get moving on it. One more wall in the garage to drywall and I can.
Looking at the photos again it appears that they may have nailed the first layer of wood and glued the second layer to it since there are no nail holes except at the rear where it was screwed into the rib. Maybe to help hold the shape of the boat tail where the wood is under the most stress. Simple matter of plugging the holes with mahogany plugs and glue.
I recall from a documentary on the spanish car marque Hispano-Sueza one of the skiffs done in tulip wood which had a wood frame inside with thin planks laid at a 45 degree angle with the outer layer laid horizontally and tacked with brass. And of course beveled edges are the way to go for fitment, I recall that from reading about horse-coach building back in my younger days. It would take a lot more skill than I have to not need putty in the end product, but I'm actually considering a painted wood body. Just for the experience of attempting it.
I know we've all seen this before.............but in guessing it was constructed by the 'glueing method'
Not the HS I was thinking of, but yours is perhaps even more lovely. My mind boggles at the craftsmanship in those rear fenders. Again, not a cyclecar. But of the era and showing construction techniques, so I'm going to nod sagely and look forward to more like it. You people are going to drive up the cost of this project considerably, I can see it now. Luckily I'm going to first attempt to build it for half my maximum budget, which should give me some breathing room as far as finding the wood strips I'm now adding to my 'parts needed' list. EDIT: I thought I'd finally found a pic of that HS I saw on the TV, but this one says it's mahogany (plus aluminium and copper rivets). It's a 1921 Duquesne-bodied H-S H6B Torpedo Skiff.
Lagonda also built a tulip wood car in the thirties. If someone hasn't seen this yet, here is one built like a strip canoe. I plan on using a method like this for my project, but a little bit older style of construction. http://www.nwvs.org/Technical/ConstructionStories/JohnsSpeedster/Speedster.shtml
OldFox, I was thinking that if you were to use strips of 1/8 or 1/4 inch luan to lay up a body like the one we were all looking at with its double planking and then painted it you would have an idea as how to do it with mahogany at a later date and a pretty reasonable first body build. When I can get to mine the first layer will be luan plywood to cut the cost. I priced mahogany today. Good thing that they had me sit down first.
july08, Saw the model A speedster body for the first time today when I was looking at the internet. He lives about 10 miles away from where I do so I'll have to ask around to see where he lives. Sure does look good. Thank you for posting it.
Good call there, Steve. Thanks. After that one link above with the guy building his wood-bodied roadster, I've started thinking about what to do with that old motorcycle in the side yard and wooden fenders popped into my mind. Sure to be very difficult, but different enough that even if I get it wrong it'll be cool just from the attempt. Of course what the bike needs is a gas tank and those can not be made from wood, so who knows how that project is going to end up.
The Jalopy Journal
