Oh, I forgot to mention...I dont have any idea what I am doing. I'm making this shit up as I go along. I've never done this before.....
That could be the difference. You have to get things done in a reasonable amount of time to make money. My whole endeavor here is a losing proposition money-wise, and then there is the fact that I love doing this type thing and learning new stuph!
I recently got a TIG welder and I wish that my welds with it were that nice. Practice, practice I guess.
Looks like progress to me. And, welds on sheet metal don’t have to be pretty...they will get covered up. At least that is what I tell myself.
I've been told that welding with tig is like gas welding. Most times I give up and go back to gas welding. It is slower. I like slow. Warpage is so overrated.
Turn your gas down to about 14 center of ball. Ya, you got a way to go but we all started somewhere. What size Tungston are you using.
To show what you can do with a little practice this is the back side not ground after welding. Here's the top side after a hit with a body file to flatten the weld. No hammer work yet. So ya know I've been at it around 45 years with the Tig program. It probably took me about 5 years to get to this point. Not all work requires this level of metal work but it sure is nice to be able to do it. Production Body Shops would starve to death if they had to come up to this level, that's why there's Body Man in a Can.
I generally use .062 tungsten Orange tip on dirty tin. If it's all new sometimes Red tip. When starting with metal I'm unsure of I always start Cold and light the arc and watch. I prefer not to have to chase the edge then walk up the amps to get a nice heat for that specific material. I like my prime heat at about 90 percent full pedal so I can back step to cool without loosing the arc. This gives me a wide range of amps to work the weld. I also seem to move quite quickly feeding the fill rod. This keeps your (my) weld flat and very little fall through as you can see in the photos above. Tig welding takes a total different mind set from Mig.
Thanks for checking on me Jeff! Yeah things are rough all around, but I seem to be in the zone where there aren't any power outages for the time being. I am on a small electric co-op so that may have something to do with it. I built my house myself and made sure I was prepared for this type weather as I have seen it do this a couple times in my life, so no frozen pipes here, and its nice and toasty in the house. The shop is equipped with a 2 ton mini split heat pump, and even it is doing fairly well for not having any supplemental electric heat. It's maintaining about 60 degrees in there with temps last night and this morning at -2 degrees. The top on the car is all welded in, and I am working on the door jambs and floorboards currently. It's all been seen before so I haven't really been taking many photos. If I go out to the shop tonight I will take a couple of pics. I hope you are staying warm up your way. I know some people in OKC that have been out heat for several days. Furnace broke down and can't get a tech out to fix it!
Glad to hear you are doing ok. We are doing fine here as well, but sure lots of folks without power on and off. I know we will all be glad when it warms up past freezing. Me and the kids just got done shoveling the snow off the driveway right before it started snowing again... Looking forward to the pics.
I was thinking about you as well today Sir. I’m glad to hear all is well and warm. Hadn’t heard from you in a bit. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
Ok, I've read the entire thread [again] and you started with that sad chopped body and it's unusable chassis. Then you started buying sedans and deliveries and the car is coming along great but I don't believe one single part of the original car was used. And that's ok......it was a POS. Congrats on a fine job.
Did I miss something? Maybe I should go back and read everything again also. I thought Sedan Delivery #2 was a stand alone Vehicle and a real nice one. Then RMONTY still has Delivery #1 and is graphing the rear body half onto a floor pan and Cowell of a 2 door sedan using the longer Doors instead of the short 4 door doors the Delivery's came with. Wouldn't be the first time I lost track of someone elses project direction or progress. RMONTY, can you bring me back up to speed here?
The original SD is sitting to the side waiting it's turn for sheet metal work (someday in the future). The second SD has been grafted to the cowl of a 1952 4 door car that was cut apart for just such purposes. Rocky is correct in that there hasnt been anything used from the original SD at this point, but the thread isnt finished! Lots of twists and turns to this one. I've just been trying to learn how to do all this stuff, so different paths have been chosen....
Got it now. I was only slightly confused. That's pretty normal for me these days. Hell I have trouble keeping track of what I'm doing on my own stuff.
My guess is that the skills you acquire on the second project will allow you to better tackle the first! You're doing great work.
I really want to see how this generation of GM deliveries looks with the long doors. I planned to make mine a long door but I was able to find only 1 door so it never got done before a guy offered a crazy nice 55 Pontiac wagon in trade for my delivery. It's weird too because in 36 chevy used the long doors on their deliveries and they looked really great! I don't know why they went back to the short doors after that. My poor old delivery was such a patchwork quilt it wouldn't have bothered me a bit to cut it up and use the long doors on it.
Working on tieing the door jambs into the floor boards. The door jamb profiles on the new quarters weren't exactly right, and there was so much deterioration at the bottom of the jambs I just decided to make new pieces. Shrinker/stretcher came in handy for this. Really slow tedious work but just about have it looking decent.
The drivers floorboard is progressing nicely I think. It was a bit worse than I originally thought but nothing that can't be fixed. I could have ordered a replacement floor pan, but for what it would have cost, I was able to buy a bead roller and motorized it. It does a decent job, and learning a new skill. This car will be far from show quality but it will be solid. The original Sedan Delivery will be a lot better by virtue of the experience I am getting piecing this bucket o' rust back together. I've made some mistakes, let a couple of areas get away from me, but trying to fix them isn't going to get me on the road and they are purely cosmetic.
Not to mention the pride of saying "I did it myself" Thanks for the update, always good to see you making progress.
Picked up some original 1949 Chevrolet Sedan Delivery Bucket Seats, and some turn signal pieces and parts. I have been looking around for some low back bucket seats to use for rear seats and these sort of just fell into my lap. I don't know if the split bench seat I had reupholstered awhile back will fit in the back for a rear seat, and then use the buckets up front ? I'm thinking the buckets may not be as comfy as the split bench. I will check out the different configurations once I get the seats here and reupholstered. I have been experimenting with a bit of upholstering, and am going to try to recover the seats myself. I am anxious to get them here so I can start the process of getting the springs and frames rehabbed and ready to cover. The place where I had the frame and springs for the split bench seat powdercoated is no longer in business, which sucks because the guy did a great job and was very reasonable @ $200 to sandblast and powder coat the skeleton of the seat. Reference Page 10. Depending on the condition and amount of rust on the frames and springs, I may give them a soak in my citric acid vat and then use some good black epoxy paint on them.
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