Projects Flashback

Stopped over to Kings yesterday and they have finished the black Sportsman. Another spectactular job by the King Brothers.

 

Stopped over to check on projects at Kings this morning and WOW. Guess the Sportsman activity is over with and now they are working on some really neat new (old) cars. Here is a shot of the start of a project (frame) of thier own design, a 39 Chev. and a 49 Dodge.
And the big surprise (since I had never seen one of these) was the 42 Ford that just came in.

Will be interesting to see all four of these projects come to life.
Hope you all have a great weekend and are enjoying an early Spring. bob

 

Stopped to see how the Kings were doing today and got a shot of the 39 Chev front frame/shocks. Have not seen these old assemblies for quite some time. Thought some of you might like to see what the world was like before the likes of Monroe and other greats.

 

Hope all of you are doing well and enjoying time with your projects. Last Thursday I was preparing to go to a car show and on the way to the gas station all the gauges went dead. Tracked the problem down to another piece of 16 guage wire that powedered about 1 inch away from the connector and for about 1 inch of length. Simply turned to gray powder! insulation was also discolored and section was noticably 'stiff' compared to rest of wire. This wire was in the vacinity of the heater hose leak from a few years back in which some of the area had anti-freeze dripping on it. I am going to do a search and see if there is/are known relationships between copper and Eth-glycol of whatever is currently used in anti-freeze. Will post results if I can get anywhere with the search. Bob

 

Did you ever wish that you could just 'recover' that one special photo from way way back? I have been testing the updates to Topaz Photo AI and using a color photo of the original 1950 Ford project, taken in 1956, and the basis for the Flashback project. The film negative strip is long lost and all I had was a scan of a wallet sized photo that survived years of military service and early work life. Every time they add more power to the program I retest it's ability to recover this photo. Last update (Superfocus) is giving inpressive and hopefull results.

 

Hello,
That is a nice old Ford Sedan. Here is a quick photo re-do with two options. A complete "in-focus" one with the building taking a lot of interest. And one that takes the building a little fuzzy and now, the old Ford Sedan is front and center.

If it were my old Ford Sedan, I would want version 2. The building just should be way in the background and not take up so much of the photo.

Jnaki

But, as we all know, everyone has their own version and way photos should be posted. So, YRMV

 

Thank you Jnaki. I like the one with the background out of focus. I am, for now, just testing each update of Topaz Photo AI with the original and comparing to their previous performance. Since the car was painted black and white, the photo that I posted a while back (recovered image of car in front of my house in 1956 winter) is fine for memories and the tires did not stand out so much (dirty sidewalls). Were you using Photoshop to blur background? Thanks again for your considerations. bob

 

Hello,

I am not a Photoshop person. I tried many times and just cannot get it to look right. So, the photos were sent to my computer photo program that most anyone has on their computers or laptops. The tablets and phones are too difficult to use as a small screen item.

Sometimes, it comes out clear and other times, the original is so out of focus or the composition is too difficult to adjust. The program is not any specific AI program. Although, if one thinks along these lines, all computers anywhere are in the AI mode. Since they do a lot of things we used to do as photographers with our own cameras, regular film or digital cameras.

Jnaki

So, the photo program is one we all use or have on our home computers or laptops. Simple and free. But, it can be used to adjust photos taken with any camera, even phone cameras to get it in focus first. Then the same photo program can go so far, but the original has to be fairly good in color and composition. YRMV

 

Wednesday evening at the Historic Auto Museum in Roscoe, IL I was parked next to a beautiful stock 50 Ford convertible and was comparing dash details. I sometimes do not realize how much I changed in the layout until I see the original.

 

Someone asked recently how the modified pillar lights worked and I promised to take a photo in the dark with the door open (so the pillar light would be on). As you can see I had removed the leather straps from the light bracket and allowed the light "to come through". I have not ever moved the drivers seat all the way up to get a full and open view of the back seat area but was pleasantly surprised about the level of illumination. bob

 

Finally figured out that my gas tank sender unit is failing. Any of you changed your gas tank sender? Can you offer advice on 1. If it need to drain the tank before breaking the old sender loose and replacing? 2. If I don't need to drain tank any suggestions on how to avoid getting crap dropping into the tank? I can scrape off all the stuff around the flange and vacuum clean before taking flange off but am guessing that the cork gasket will break up when I pull the flange off the tank OR am I getting that wrong? Appreciate any advice you can offer. Bob

 

Stopped over to see how the Kings are coming along on the 39 Chev. Wagon and they had it up on the lift. I understand that Corvettes have a center mounted rear spring (did not know that before talking to Tracy) but thought the 1939 version of it was quite well engineered.

 

Another interesting visit to the King's workshop. Today they are starting to put together the pieces (complete rebuild) of a 39 Chev. wagon after forming the fender lands. In the picture below the wagon inbetween is a 49 Dodge and the far one is another 39 Chev (much farther along). The interesting thing about the new 39 build is that the owner wanted to make a 2 door out of it so Tracy and Dave are re-engineering the door pillars and rear quarter design to satisfy the changeover.