Hey Fellas, always do a search, before posting. Short thread almost 10 years ago. Saw this yesterday and just had to share it. Amazing behind the scenes look, into ALL the details that go into the production of a SINGLE model year. WOW...GM was such a world leader 60 years ago. The vast amount of technology was/is mind blowing. And look at all the happy people, dressed sharp, doing manual labor producing a fantastic product.
Large scale clay craftsmen... Fisher Body Craftsman's Guild design compe***ion Hello, When my brother and I read about the clay modeling contest for car designs, we jumped at the chance to see what we could do with clay. He drove to the neighborhood hobby shop and got us some modeling clay. We started to use our mom’s knives and s****s to shape various items, just to get started. It was fun and then we got down to business. The first grey blob turned into a rectangular box that looked like it could be a sedan. Then as my brother worked on that rectangular clay shape, I use the next blob to shape it into a low smooth hump that looked like a fastback GM car. The basic roughhouse kneading of the clay was ok at first. Then the raw kitchen utensils were ok to get the general shapes started. But using a silver knife like a pencil was hard enough. I wanted to use my mom’s good pure silver ****er knife from her “holiday” silverware packaging, but she said it would ruin her shiny hand polished silver knife. So, back to the everyday utensils for the clay work. One day, my brother somehow got some intricate tools that he was told, custom tools for small hobby work and detailing on clay models. Now, once the general shape was done with kitchen utensils, the fine work was starting with the custom steel tools my brother brought home. There were enough tools that both of us could use separately. Flat blade ones for shaping and bending curves, sharp tipped ones for drawing lines and shadows without leaving a crumbled mess as we sliced through the grey clay. Now, the rectangular box began to look like a Model A sedan. Using the scribing tool with a sharp point, the door lines and window detail was given some detailing. The super sharp tool was used to make the finest detail of lines and deep curves. The flat blade unit was the shaping tool and smoothing out tool with the sharp point was the all in one unit. Jnaki So, what were the final results? The rectangle ended up with some nice wheels from a 1/24 scale model. It was a Model A two door sedan. We could see the results, but the detailing was nothing to write home about, oh wait, we were home… My low rounded shape looked streamlined, but again, the detailing was not as good as could be done. our clay models did not look as good as some newspaper photos and magazine articles. So they became backyard BB rifle targets and that was cool. The BBs stuck to the clay and once full of holes or BB infused holes, they went to the trash can looking like the Bonnie and Clyde 1934 Ford sedan. Our future was not going to be clay modelers for the auto industry. That was for sure. But I still have the small metal tools that we used on those weeks and months of messing around with stuff. Almost 66 years old and still looking like new tools. Old Simichrome polish and recently, Flitz, plus a layer of Collinite still makes those metal tools shiny and preserved.
Having always been fascinated with how the factories built various automobiles in the days gone bye and with Fisher Body on my mind I went searching You Tube and stumbled upon the video that the OP had already posted here. The shear number of jobs people had in the American Automobile industry is what hits me the hardest. All the people, the talent, the skill, the engineering, the craftmanship, the tonnage of material, the number of parts, etc. that it took to produce a new model nearly every year is just staggering. To think this was then multiplied by all the different manufactures stretches ones imagination. Just the tooling and the supporting infrastructure was a colossal undertaking. Probably only eclipsed by the WWII effort. It is amazing to watch and see what went into building these cars that we still love and appreciate today.
I did it for about 10 years and my Dad did it his whole working career. He's 92 year old and no lung issues. I'd spray lacquer without a mask before I'd touch 2 pack.
The Jalopy Journal
