Greetings my fellow Yenkonians!
It's time for some updates, and in particular, this thread! What a year. Our move is complete, my shop is done, Kelly's barn is done, two bathroom remodels done along with countless ceiling fans, light fixtures, and completely updating a 1994 house to bring it into the 21st century is finally finished! Ok, well, the kitchen is the last thing but that's enough for this year. So it's back into cars!
Last we left off the body buck was finished and I've spent several nights sleeping under it. Some by choice, others, well, I guess that was as a result of my choices
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Anyway, Much like how I graduated college, I thought that if I slept close to or on top of it, the process of osmosis would permeate knowledge on how to build this thing into my brain. Other than a nasty spider bite, I got nothing by doing that. So I did the next best thing and decided to buy all kinds of tools to bend and smash metal along with my fingers.
If you remember, I was originally going to do metal, then fiberglass, and now I'm back on metal and I'm glad I went this route. It's so much fun to bend the metal and have it come out in a shape that sort of resembles what I want it to look like.
So what's in the SuperDave Metalworks Cave? Glad you asked! A planishing hammer, English Wheel, brake, shrinker, stretcher, various beater bags, mallets, shears, bead roller, snips, Dollys, and bunch of others cool things I don't know how to use!
So figuring I need to show some progress this year, I finally got the time to sit down, er, stand.... And hammer on some metal! I'm headed to Kentucky next month for a one on one metal class with a guy that worked with Shelby on the cobras to learn the trade of everything metal! Meanwhile, I knocked out half of the front fascia and happy with the results.
I used 3M welding paper to create the form then rolled it out into the steel to cut the pattern. This was very handy since it's sticky on the back which allows it to stick to the form yet easily releases. Perfect for pattern forming!
Lots to learn and so far I've used every tool in the arsenal. So stay tuned... More to come!
Cheers
Dave