Simple tech: building a body buck

Simple tech: building a body buck

Here’s a how-to on building a body buck. I should have taken more pictures, but the ones here should illustrate this simple procedure.

Step one: Define the curve of the backbone. For this step, I basically eyeballed a curve that would flow well from the hood and cowl at the front, to the boattail point at the rear. I cut this curve into a piece of MDF. (MDF is medium density fiberboard, which is widely available at hardware stores and works great for body bucks.)

Step two: Attach aluminum welding rod to the backbone. I put a 2” bend in the end of each rod and hammered that bend flat for the area under the staples and on top of the backbone. (I should have taken a picture with all of the welding rods sticking straight out.) I spaced the welding rods every 4 inches.

Step three: carefully bend the rod to match what you want the contours of the body to look like. Take your time and bend the welding rod carefully. Make small, easy beds here and there, and avoid putting a kink anywhere.

In this picture, I’ve already cut out every other welding rod to be used as a template.

 

Here’s how I use the welding rod as a template. I simply trace the rod with a pencil and cut with a jigsaw. Just be careful to keep things square relative to one another.

 

Here I’ve replaced a number of welding rods with MDF sections.

 

Finally, screw everything together with L-brackets. You could also use wood glue, but I’d like to be able to remove sections when I want. (For example, I may want to put a clamping hole in any one of the pieces of MDF.)

That's it.

--Matt

 

Hey Matt, thanks for the TECH. It looks simple enough so far, but what's the next step? Don't leave me hanging!

Ed

 

Thanks Ed.

The next step is forming sheet aluminum to cover the body buck. I'll be using 0.065" 3003 aluminum, hammered into shape with a mallet and sand bag, and then planished on an English wheel.

I spaced the horizontal members of MDF every 8" because I'm going to use a Henrob to create some tacks. The extra space helps prevent the MDF from catching fire! If you were to tack weld with a TIG, I'd use closer spacing in order to make a more definite shape.

If you want to see someone who is doing the same thing on a completely higher level, check out:
http://members.aol.com/coupechuck/

Here's a couple of pics of what he's created using essentially the same process:





Pretty cool, no?

--Matt