Thank you, that’s super helpful! Your chassis looks stout! It was £415 GBP, or $520 USD total. I don’t remember how much Industrial Chassis was charging when they made theirs, but I thought this was reasonable. The quality and service is top notch. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
thanks a lot Mart Thank you No we didn't run any tests, I couldn't think of a way of putting stress through the chassis in a controlled way to monitor the differences each time to put a fair comparison together. if felt way stiffer so that was good enough for us. as Tim said they work out at $520 to your door, I don't believe there is any duty to pay on the items due to them being under the threshold of import value (so my shipping screen tells me anyway) These ship on a 3-5 day service. thank you very much
The way I did it was to put jack stands under the rear kick ups and one under the middle of the front crossmember. I secured the left rear of the frame and clamped a board across the frame at the front crossmember. I put some weight on the sticking out board and measured the deflection at the frame horn. I put on about 900 ft lbs and measured 2” with the stock frame. My frame was really unmeasurable.
I hope you do not think I am finding fault. What you have done is tremendous and is a great improvement. If I am forgiven, I would suggest a shear web along the top of your legs directly behind the K member. It would just be a plate with flanges that would just bolt inside the legs. It does not need to attach to the K member. You would see a marked improvement with very little added effort.
Sorry Andy I hadn't picked up on your comment. I don't see this as finding fault at all. If I had the last chassis out of the fixture for a longer period before it was collected, and the first set of fitting prototype braces fitted I would have enjoyed collecting some for of data to back up the concept. On that note, I have 2 brace kits back in stock. Please see the forsale section for further info. 14 by joe curtis, on Flickr 9 by joe curtis, on Flickr 1 by joe curtis, on Flickr
thank you very much Sir. Another batch of brace kits complete- 2 sets left ready to ship. We are shipping up until the 24th, then again from the 27th on December. 20 by joe curtis, on Flickr 25 by joe curtis, onFlickr 14 by joe curtis, on Flickr 30 by joe curtis, on Flickr 32 by joe curtis, on Flickr 27 by joe curtis, on Flickr Some more insight to the work going into these and my other projects here https://www.instagram.com/p/CJE-L6jHYfQ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link link to the web shop for easy check out- freshreflections.bigcartel.com/product/1932-chassis-brace-kit
You sure do nice work, and at a reasonable cost, including shipping. I just read all 3 pages, and I was very impressed. You are a true craftsman, and take pride in your work. It shows. I am 80 years old, and have seen many 1932 Ford chassis builds over the years, your attention to detail, and your jigs / fixtures are the best that I have ever seen. Again, a true craftsman, and a great welder, too. I think your philosophy is to do it right the first time.
I bought a set of chassis braces from Joe. They are first rate. My rod is a 30 roadster on a 32 chassis; repo rails and original crossmembers. I built to replicate what might have been a typical build in the 50's with no boxing and drove it like that for 10 years. I was sick and tired of the "roadster door pinch" and the rattles and banging I got. I installed the rails with the body in place. The heap is still not completely back together but I expect great things. Jacking the the chassis at a rear corner shows the doors stay in alignment and the gaps stay as they should. Amazing the rigidity they added. As mentioned they were a bit north of $500....but to try and duplicate for less.
I picked up a set of braces from Joe and as others have stated they are top notch. They are going on an original 32' chassis that I am building for my 31' coupe body. Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Really means a lot Nick thank you for your kind words. Thanks for the positive customer feedback guys it really helps with more US sales - thanks for your support and taking the time to post on here. Feel free to fire some photos up once you have your kit installed. ------------- Right here we go again then, we just completed another chassis build so get ready for a the photo overload. A few small changes with this build, the customer wanted all members TIG welded in and the rivets to be set in also, best of both worlds in my opinion. As the chassis supplied come bolted together and primed under the members, first up was a full brake down in order to get some clean metal before going back together ready for welding. DSC00936 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC00937 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC00933 by joe curtis, on Flickr Back together for welding DSC00938 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC00941 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC00943 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC00944 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC00954 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC00948 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC00951 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC00952 by joe curtis, on Flickr 17 by joe curtis, on Flickr 20 by joe curtis, on Flickr The countersunk rivets we set in the K top to grind off, how ever with front member I wanted to try get a sweet spot to drive the rivet in flush and leave as is. Really happy with the results 15 by joe curtis, on Flickr 5 by joe curtis, on Flickr Onto the next addition, the customer wanted firewall dimples into the new rails. Luckily enough I had access to a stock chassis to measure and a few guys around the world on instagram were kind enough to send over reference material so I could compare a few chassis. I knocked up some press tooling and set about seeing what we could do, everything was heated in situ and pressed, no welding or blending. Heres the results 2 by joe curtis, on Flickr 4 by joe curtis, on Flickr 5 by joe curtis, on Flickr Gathered a few parts up for a small mock up before strip down ready for customer collection 3 by joe curtis, on Flickr 1 by joe curtis, on Flickr 19 by joe curtis, on Flickr 8 by joe curtis, on Flickr 12 by joe curtis, on Flickr 11 by joe curtis, on Flickr 10 by joe curtis, on Flickr
With having a chassis on hand to install a chassis brace kit, I thought it would be ideal timing to put together some images to help visually with the use of the shim kit thats included in the package. I thought posting the guide here maybe handy to all of you cracking guys who have purchased a kit, to all of you thanks massively for your support. JoeFR PSX_20210309_200408 by joe curtis, on Flickr PSX_20210309_201903 by joe curtis, on Flickr PSX_20210309_202829 by joe curtis, on Flickr Project - Drawing 14408550535623822182 by joe curtis, on Flickr PSX_20210309_212639 by joe curtis, on Flickr PSX_20210310_220614 by joe curtis, on Flickr PSX_20210310_221037 by joe curtis, on Flickr
Man oh man Joe, the saying "the devil is in the details" is so apropos in your work! Keep those detail/tech photos coming please, we really look forward to it.
Thanks Denny, im glad the more in depth style of uploads people enjoy. its much of the same thing over and over until we get time to start hammering through the new parts. I finally sorted a set of my own rails so hopefully this will give me some freedom on the next chassis, no time restraints etc. Another batch of braces done, a few have asked what consumables I have used on the clean up.. I tried to take photos of each step but the lighting isn't great in my dirty room, it seems I blocked half the light out when taking photos. I have this end of the brace down to 4 minutes of clean up, total of around 7 mins total per "leg" which I do in stages. 2 by joe curtis, on Flickr This weld in relief allows the braces to go in with out having to bend the return fold on the K up out of the way. Not a huge visual but they just look nice with the welds blended. Stack the weld in as much as I can to get enough filler on to blend it back out evenly. 3 by joe curtis, on Flickr 4 by joe curtis, on Flickr Roughed out with 80 grit 6 by joe curtis, on Flickr smoothed out with a conditioning disc, not cheap but give great results. Pull up your faces night and tight, leaving all your sharp edges on still. Loads of grades to chose from- used a lot for blending stainless. Hook back disc, super speedy to change your grades on the fly. Pretty sure this is a medium grade. 7 by joe curtis, on Flickr 8 by joe curtis, on Flickr 80 grit DA sanded, just knock of the edges to a full blend. Job done. DSC01392 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC01394 by joe curtis, on Flickr Same steps wit the tail end of the braes, you don't see this end once installed. But that's no reason not to clean them up the best we can. 25 by joe curtis, on Flickr repeat, repeat, repeat 23 by joe curtis, on Flickr 19 by joe curtis, on Flickr 17 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC01399 by joe curtis, on Flickr 24 by joe curtis, on Flickr 20 by joe curtis, on Flickr 21 by joe curtis, on Flickr More photos on my flickR account, loads of non-Hamb posted work on my IG too for those who are interested. fresh_reflections Model A chassis now up on the chassis able, will start another thread for this soon. Thanks for everyone for following along.
brace kits back in stock, everything this time we had had grained- small steps to keep trying to bring a nicer finished product each time. Thanks for those who have purchased from me- still finalising our new parts before we can share them with you. for now here's some colours from the brace kits which are back in stock and can be purchased here freshreflections.bigcartel.com/product/1932-chassis-brace-kit DSC01807 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC01810 by joe curtis, on Flickr
Impressive is not an adequate description word for what you have done above ^^^!!! Thanx for sharing, I’m glad that I caught the thread this go round as this is what tech is all about. Thx, CK.
Well it's been a while, massively far behind with updating this with the chassis builds that have come out of the shop. Here's what turned into a rather long winded project- full chassis was 95% finished back in august 2022. Anyway big team effort getting this ball rolling. Back story with this was Jamie scanned the original chassis we made the fixture around, and started playing on cad as and when, we had a prototype cut and short put to one side due to the effort involved in some folding, the idea was to have these as a production item with the leg brace kits. The shape in these from factory is frankly mad. What you see here is V2, (V1 got cut up and wanton into an A chassis, to make the AV8 kits - which I'm still to fully finish too) In the end this become a welding and blending learning curve for me, with 85% of the parts folded up on a cic press brake, there was a lot of unknowns left to stumble over when sticking it in a set of rails. A fair bit of handing cutting of parts left, trimming bits to fit and taking notes what we wanted to change. Enough rambles, here's a new as close to factory K member we could produce at the time. DSC02381 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC02384 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC02379 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC02387 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC02377 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC02366 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC02368 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC02373 by joe curtis, on Flickr DSC02364 by joe curtis, on Flickr the rest of the chassis build shall be written up as soon as I can, Thanks Joe
WOW!!!! Best repop 32 k-member, that I ever seen. You should make both 32 and model A versions - they'll sell
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