Customs 1951 Buick Special - the begining of the end

I missed this one earlier, very, VERY nice!

 

Dam this is one impressive build! Its gonna be killer once your "finished"!

 

i know you are working on the vent windows and have an idea in mind, but if that fails, you could do your windows out of square tubing bent on a jig. kinda like the hirohata merc side windows.

 

I read the whole build from beginning to end on RR. It loks perfect bud. The stuff u are buliding is cool as hell. I like how u still do work on VW's too. That's where my start came from. Keep up the cool work and can't wait to see what else u put out next.... until then.

 

thank you guys for all the kind words! getting back to work, got to start putting more hours at the shop...

 

Not a big chop fan,,but this one is right on the money ,,very well done,,looks great

 

Looks good!

 

thank you guys for the good words.

over the weekend i was able to finish striping the roof to bare metal. also got the front windshield out again for more refining...



worked on shaving my taillights.

i worked with the bumperetts until i found a design that best complimented the bumperetts and the car. my original idea was different than what i ended up with but thats how it goes sometimes...

original idea:



the design i ended up going with (there is no need for a "frame"):



drilled the 4 corners, larger at the bottom than the top so they would be radiused, blue tape is just to better see the shape:



made some inlays to fill the old taillight holes. bent them over a pipe and welded them in:



a quick skim coat of bondo and some red primer:



lastly some black from a can for a better visual:



im very pleased with how the back is looking now, i will not slope the quarters like in my sketch, they finish nicely and follow the trunk slope:



next ill go hunt some clear red lucite to make my lenses. i want to recess the edges so the lucite is flush with the bumperett.

till then...

 

It keeps getting better!

 

Looking good man!!! Love the tail light treatment as well as the rest of the car really.

Oh and got the Ranflas magazine. Your spread looks great...can't read it but it does look good!!!

 

KILLER! Thanks for sharing, big time! Slim

 

Looking good, but may I suggest a discreet third brake light up top somewhere, wouldn't wanna see your car get rear ended because your lights were so low and invisible to our idiot Floriduh drivers.

 

thanks yall! im excited as can be to see this finally happening.

Nads i hear ya on those Florida drivers! down here in Miami its probably even worst! im considering using those LED bulbs to brighten things up even more. ill see soon enough.

well thought id bore yall tonight with the crap you cant see but has to happen. i made the light bulb holders and played around with some red transparent plexi. unfortunately the upper and lower curve of the bumperett does not match. so making the plexi sit flush is not an option for the moment. i will need other tools to make that happen. so dont be alarmed for the meantime i will use thiner material so i can continue circulating my car.

made these 2 flaps from a sheet metal and bought the bulb holder at Advanced:



the fit is pretty close, i plan to run a spliced vacumm hose on the edge of the flaps to better seal the light area:



the 2 flaps plug welded together bolt on using the bumperett bolts, the bulb will be accessible from the back via the 2 small screws holding it in place and the wires will be completely hidden:



i painted the bulb holder and back of the bracket black while the inside surfaces i painted white fro better illumination.

good nite!

 

i was way over thinking the lens issue. all i needed was my torch!

simply took a roughly shaped piece of the red plex and used the cut out to form the shape, after heating it up i was able to press it down to the perfect shape!



here is the finished one and the rough shape i started with, i can later go and depress the edges so the plexy sits flush with the gaurds, i used 1/4" thick plexy...



looks good to me...

 

Anyone can chop the living shit out of a car. It takes real balls to chop just enough.
IMHO, that's exactly what you've done.

 

Agreed, especially in today's rat rod world where restraint has been thrown out along with good taste.

 

Wow. You made that look easy. Love the look bro!!!

 

This is such a bad ass car!

 

sweet mod... and good timing too as I am about to tackle a similar mod.

Thanks for posting!

Keep the updates coming (subscribed to this thread!)



...

 

looking good!! i like it!

 

Wow. Awesome work. I'm lovin' those tail lights. This thing is badazz.

 

well, thats it for the taillights. only thing ill do is swap the bulbs for those "LED" style bulbs (suposed less heat i dont want melt the lenses). im very content with the overall look and when i make my final set of lenses they will be even nicer now that i got to practice. yeah these are only "practice" like a sketch.

its amazing how much work goes into this what in the end appears to be not much. mean i love the look but its very simple yet so much goes to making it look, simple. things are taking shape and the final picture is getting closer. only 1 more body change i want to make, that is fabricate some "flush" skirts, oh and remove that awful trunk key just sitting there by itself, its got to go.

my ass never looked so good...

 

Dang !! your car just gets better and better !

 

Lovin it!!

 

thank you guys. i am going to use kitchen ceiling tile plastic that will distort the LED pattern. going to break a piece off that is over a cabinet so it wont be noticed. haha yeah my kitchen still has those.

the above pic is with running lights using reg bulbs 2157. im hoping the LED will be brighter and not get hot. the plastic will hopefully make the entire lense glow rather than having a hot / bright spot.

thanks!

 

wow very classy i might have to steal that idea!

 

You're rockin' this thing Bro! Keep up the awesome work!

 

Looks great. I think it was a good decision not to extend/slope the quarters, I like the look.

 

The LED's will not generate as much heat, but I bought a couple for my 38 chevy stock tail lights, and they were kinda directional, like an old bigscreen TV... you had to be looking at them directly from behind to see the full brightness. I switched back to regular bulbs... but they may work better in your application.. make sure to get the biggest LED bulb that will fit. (most amount of LED's)