History Ok No stupid questions?

I have seen where you all have said there is no such thing as a stupid question..well I got one.

Were the Model A's body parts..ie..fenders splash aprons, doors and bodies all painted as sperate parts and than put together after the paint dried? or were they primered apart and the car, after it was assembled painted the final coat of paint?

reason for the question is, i see no way my 28 sedan was ever taken apart in its life, but i see no traces of a final black or any other color of paint in the areas that would not be seen once the car was completely assembled.

back to your regularly scheduled HAMB

 

I know that fenders were painted separate, and would say 90% sure that doors were painted separate too.

Fenders were actually dipped in paint til maybe about '34. If you look inside some nice stockers you can see the runs.

 

True, i guess i did see some evidence of that, but my splash aprons up under the body were almost bare of any coating, and all i could see was something like a primer.

maybe just 80 years does a number on that old paint to where even if it was out of sight it still came off?

 

Really my gut feelings are that it would have all been painted final color and that assembled..it only stands to reason.

it just kinda threw me a curve ball when i looked at the tops of my splash aprons and there was no indication of the original color of the car.

 

You probably had replacement OEM parts installed early in the car's life, and painted after installation. Could very well look like original parts by now.

 

good thought

thanks Alchemy..thats probably why

 

It seems to me that when you see those early photos of Ford assembly lines all the parts are painted before the car was assembled

 

my Dad was the resident A Model guru when i was a kid, and i grew up reading Clymer's restoration manuals for A's, but for the life of me i cannot recall now whether they, like T's, were dipped in lacquer... i THINK the fenders and aprons were painted separate from the body/hood because there were several optional body colors that had plain black fenders and aprons. solid color cars MIGHT have had the fenders, etc on the car when painted, but i believe they were put on after being painted individually.
what amazes me on A's is that even the unpainted metal inside stays solid if kept dry... Henry might have been a skinflint SOB but he paid for and got good steel....

 

Paint process is in the "as Henry built it" book... fenders were black, dipped separately.
Body was assembled and sprayed, and loose parts that were same color, like the hood, were hung up from lines in front of body, traveling on same line, and sprayed, baked, etc. at same time as main body to ensure match. Then, everything went off to the assembly line to meet the chassis.

 

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I read somewhere that the early metal had a high nickel content.That's what made it last so long.You're right,old Henry had his shit together.

 

I think he made his own steel - rubber and owned the land the wood was on.
That way nobody could harsh his gig.

 

i think Ford owned half of Brazil at one point, for rubber plantations... and i wouldn't put it past Hank to have made his own steel. remember, Ford was a privately owned company for a LOOONNGG time. pity that things aren't as good now as they were for him in the twenties and early '30's. Ford actually paid customers a rebate on car purchases in some years..... think they'd be able to do that now?

that dipped lacquer was a cost cutting measure, BTW; it dried fast, it stuck like glue, and held a good shine. it actually wasn't "dipped" per se but wasn't really "sprayed" on either; the nozzles were large and flowed at pretty low pressure to keep overspray (and waste) down. the bodies moved over a large catch tank which constantly recycled the drainoff from the bodies. people tend to forget that Ford had lots of pretty sharp folks working for him, and every once in a while they'd defect to another maker, like Chrysler,GM, Studebaker, et al, and make a "new" name for themselves there.

i wish i still had Dad's old Floyd Clymer books. getting all nostalgic now....

 

He did make his own steel..the Steel Plant is still in Dearborn and still producing steel.

Rouge steel..it used to be part of the ford plant right next door.