Art & Inspiration Traditional Construction Techniques?

When I started building cars, in a barn with a wood floor, and a sliding door that wouldn't close, that was 1964. My Brother had an acetylene torch, and taught me how to weld with it. A friend of mine's Dad, loaned me a stick welder and a disc grinder. With a drill and some hand tools, I thought I had it made . My plan was to go Drag Racing, and this is what we built, using a model A frame, a donor '53 Cadillac, and parts of that time. The only new parts I bought, were a hair-pin steering arm and a set of shackles from J.C. Whitney. Check out that first set of headers, Things are much easier for me these days.

 

Swapped my first engine about 50 years ago. I bought a '47 Willys wagon for less than $20 and a '55 Olds, a runner, for about $100. Motor and tranny went in ok, had to borrow a welder to make some mounts. The rear end was close enough so I only had to spread the Willys leaf springs a little (!) for it to bolt right in. How to start it with a dead battery and no timing light? Just sit on the flat fender while your buddy steers, coast down the hill, and twist the distributor until it fires! As I recall, you had to be going pretty fast before the Hydra-matic would build enough pressure to turn the motor.

 

I have two thing in decent quantity sitting in my storage unit:

Shitty tools, and show trophies.

Some people who have been to my former shop actually laughed at me and walked out.

 

Hey oj, I've drooled over that picture for years!
That kid really nailed it! Man I bet he could tell
some stories about the way it was pre-war!
Funny how one picture can show so much!
How about the radius rods, and the engine breathers!

 

with a good wheel stand you could claim it as advertising!

 

using what you have or can afford to make something cool is as traditional as it gets. if those parts were available back in the day the hot rodders back then would have used them too.

 

I don't know if it's been mentioned in this thread already, but when researching how to weld aluminum, Kent White, "The Tin Man", does some comparison of TIG welding to gas welding, on all the different metals. He claims gas welding aluminum is superior to TIGing it, and most of the coach builders prefer gas welding steel , to TIGing it, as you have more time to correct warpage, and add shape to your panel. I agree with the steel part, haven't done enough aluminum yet to judge that one.

 

Gas welding aluminum was the only way for a long time and Held plenty of planes together.

 

I'm trying to teach myself to gas weld aluminum for the '30s sprint type car that I'm building just to say I did but it's not going so well...

 

It is more similar to mixing mashed potatoes than it is to welding steel.

 

Haha! Agreed! I could just Tig weld it but it's the principal of the thing you know?!

 

you know, whenever I read one of these "threads" on the HAMB, I wonder if any of these guys wonder what they were talking about when they kept saying "heliarc welded" in the magazines back in the day......no, guess not...

 

I'm sure they did, however I bet they never thought they would be in yours or your neighbors garage. They weren't in every fab shop either.

Hey dad, can you take this to work and have it welded ? Maybe I don't know

 

No heliarc until 1941 (patented anyway.) My car is suppose to be circa 1934-35 and I doubt "Joe racer" had a tig on the farm, ha! That being said, mine may well get tigged if I keep melting holes like I am now!

 

Haven't heard that name in a coons age.
Had an old Watervliet floor jack in the early 70's.
Couldn't pour hydraulic fluid in it fast enough to use it.

 

Well, I meant the guys reading old magazines now, you know, the ones who think tig welding was "invented" in the nineties. There was a wide range of builders then as now, when you see names like "Clayton", "Hagemann" or "Ingels"mentioned in an article in a fifties hot rod magazine, they would have had ready access to it.
OP, I COMPLETELY misread the intent of your question, as most of the guys posting did, and I sincerely apologize for that.

 

You got that right.

I used to fix broken castings for the dismantler next to my shop for extra scratch. I often had to use the blue-tipped wrench. It took a couple of years to perfect my technique.

 

Cactus there are very good reasons to gas weld sheet aluminum rather than tig weld it for body panels, aside from it being the traditional technique for making aluminum body panels. If you really can't stop blowing holes, try using oxygen/hydrogen instead of oxy/acetylene. The tip should be at a shallower angle relative to what you would use for steel, you should be holding the torch at around 30 degrees to the material, so you are pre-heating the material ahead of the weld. What thickness is your material, what regs are you using, and what do you have your pressure set at? Are the regs stable at that pressure? The pressure should be lower than you would use for gas welding steel, if the regs you are using can't hold a stable 2-3 psi, you are fighting an uphill battle.

 

I love reading the few stories in this thread about finding old work that's less than perfect, and leaving it.
Pretty cool

 

Having it clean and using the correct flux never hurt anything either. Good Luck

 

I don't want to muddy the OP's thread with my trials and tribulations with gas welding ally (though it does go with the tone of the thread,ha!)

I was using a jeweler's torch but switched to a Henrob which is much better. I ran out of .063 material so I was using something even thinner which wasn't helping . My regs are nothing special but they do seem to work at the lower pressure.

I know all about clean from Tig welding it and I did buy the correct flux and even the fancy lenses so I don't go blind(er). I think the bottom line is that I really just need more seat time with it .

 

Damn straight, as clean as "engine building clean" we are talking surgically clean! Some guys won't even use a reg on the hydrogen bottle that has had acetylene through it. I am thinking about buying a dedicated reg myself, I really like doing this. If you are welding .040, you really want to be down around 2 psi, and if the reg is fluctuating at those pressures, it's more difficult. I have Smiths two stage regs and a henrob.
FWIW, Pat mentioned in his thread that he had an aluminum tig rod that he was using that enabled him to be able to planish the finished weld without it cracking. Hi-jack over, stick with it.

 

Zeke Justice showed me how to gas weld aluminim and the biggest thing I learned was to flick your wrist with the tip, he'd get the aluminum to puddle and with the flick he'd like throw the puddle ahead. Flick, flick flick right along the seam.

 

speaking of traditional, here's some reprinted shots of the lead slinger himself doing what he did best. RIP Bill Hines[emoji120]


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And a shitload of Indy roadster bodies...

 

Great thread. It's helping me regain a perspective I had lost. Subscribed and thank you!!!!!

 

Amen to that! I've been in the body repair business for over 40 years and I've seen guys that have the biggest toolboxes with all of the best tools and still can't do the work right. I've also seen plenty of guys that can do the work right, that cut corners and cheat the customers just to make a few extra bucks. I trained and now work with my son. We work as a team. The one thing I taught him first is that we are doing this for our pride first, money second. When I went to Tech School that was one thing the instructor focused on. He said, "No matter what you do in life, do it the best you can. Not all of you guys will go on to be bodymen. Some of you may wind up being a garbage man. If you do, be the best damn garbage man there is!"
That is one of the most important lessons I ever learned in life.
I watched my Dad build Hot Rods with just the basic tools. He didn't get a mig welder until he was about 70 years old. He could gas weld like no one I've ever seen before. He never had any fancy tools his entire life yet he built some extremely nice cars. Lots of them. He was a true craftsman. He also took pride in everything he did.

The way I see it, if you build perfection, it will most likely be a concours show car and you are going to be trailering everywhere. It will have to be perfect to be successful. I doubt that you would be able to enjoy driving it much. Most regular guys couldn't afford to build one and fewer could afford the risk of something possibly going wrong while driving it.
I would much rather have a really nice driver, or two, that I don't have to stress too much over and drive the wheels off of, rather than a trailer queen that I was afraid to let get dirty.
I think the vast majority of the original Hot Rods we refer to as "Traditional", were built with fairly basic tools, to enjoy and drive, more so than to be show cars. It was a way of making a car, your own.
Just my take on this