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Dean, All the best for your future projects. I'm sure you'll do very well at whatever you decide to do. Hopefully there will be time for another Hup amongst them. Your work has been enthralling to watch and I have enjoyed reading about the solutions you have found to the many problems along the way. One day we may get to the States and would love to meet you, your understanding wife, and the Hup. Yours has been an inspirational restoration for me and I feel for many others, so we will still keep checking the forum; partly as a reference for what you have done, and partly to see what you are currently up to. Again all the best Alan

Dean, Thanks for the prompt reply. The information you gave will be most helpful. I am obviously missing that bit which screws on to the button. Chuck is going to send me some photos of his disassembled horn button when he is finished painting a friend's Hup, and an aussie in South Australia is going to send some photos of a 27 horn button setup. This forum (and the people who read it) is absolutely great for getting much needed information. Thanks everyone for the assistance Alan

Dean Your skills (especially the ability to have a go at anything) are absolutely amazing. I still start the day looking for your posts. A friend helped me to get the roadster engine running for the first time in many, many years- and it sounded great. Whilst there are many challenges still ahead of me; one in particular is frusrtating the life out of me at the moment. I thought that I must have the wrong horn button; but looking at the photo above it looks exactly the same as yours. I must be missing the piece that connects the horn button to the steering column. Could you explain or draw a diagram of the way in which the horn button operates?. I have the horn button and the wire with the metal strip on top that runs through the centre of the steering column and the insulating washer and the copper ring with the fingers. Any help would be much apreciated. Alan

To Barry and John Thanks for the positive comments - I know I enjoyed the process of documenting the making of the replacement part. In many instances I think using the lost wax process is one of the only ways of obtaining a needed part. If you can find one original part in reasonable condition you can make as many replacement parts as needed and keep all of the vehicles which form our motoring heritage on the road. Regards Alan

Keiser 31 G'day John, Like you, I'm truly amazed at Chuck's generosity in sending the parts that I need over to Australia, but at the same time saddened to hear that someone betrayed the trust you showed in sending them bits for their car to copy. Rest assured, I will get Chuck's parts back to him as soon as I possibly can. So far I have been able to make replicas of parts that people required, using parts that I have. But that has been for people that I knew. This is a lot different and I appreciate what Chuck is doing immensely. Best regards Alan

Hupp36 Hi Chuck, My address in the 2007 Hupp club roster is current. I probably should add it is the address for Alan Jones in Brisbane Australia. I have a 29 Sedan and a 421J aerodynamic sedan as well as the 28 roadster. Anyway I don't think there is more than one Alan Jones in Brisbane registered with the Hupmobile Club in America. If you are in any doubt about the postal address you could confirm details by email and my e-mail address is alanrjon@bigpond.net.au A million thanks again and I will return the parts to you as soon as I can. I will let you know when I receive the parts and I should be able to send them back withih a few days. You keep on Hupping too Best Regards Alan

25 peerless72 Thanks for the compliment on the work. Regarding your question about nickel plating, I purchased a kit to do this work and it seems to work well. As I said above, the main secrets are in the preparation or polishing of the piece and then cleanliness of the part before you plate. Regarding the polishing, the only advice I can give is that the part should be so shiny that it looks like it has been plated before you start to plate. Regarding the cleaning, I sometimes use molasses diluted about 40:1 to clean rust from parts but it is very slow. It takes a few days - which is OK if you have the time- as it does a good job eating rust. The sellers of the kit also sell a "parts cleaner" which does a good job and much faster - a few hours usually is all that is required. It depends how filthy the part was to start with. The part then needs to be washed with a strong detergent and then rinsed in distilled water. Whichever way you clean the part it has to pass a waterbreak test - which sounds complex but all that means is that water does not bead on the part when you dip it the distilled water- it runs off in a film. Don't touch the part with your fingers after it has passed the waterbreak test as the oil on your skin will cause problems when plating. The part should be on its hanger and put straight in the electrolyte. I took a photo of the part in the crock pot when I was plating the second half I use a "crock pot" which is a brand of slow cooker here in Australia. I'm sure they would have a similar appliance in the US. The electrolyte has to be heated and maintained to 50 - 60 degrees Centigrade (120 - 140 degrees Fahrenheit) during plating. The crock pot does a good job but you have to convince the wife that she doesn't need it any more!. The part is hung by copper wire from the cathode (-)ve terminal and nickel anodes are hung by nickel wires from the (+)ve terminal each side of the part. The electrolyte comes as crystals which you have to dissolve in distilled or demineralised water. You add a few drops of brightener, raise the temperature (it takes about an hour to get a full pot to 50) turn on the power supply and set it to the best voltage and plate for about 45 minutes -- all done. All the information here - and a lot more - comes with the instruction manual in the kit. They sell other materials if you wish to copper plate first - which you would do if the part was badly pitted. Copper is the electroplaters "bog". If you are plating old parts that are steel, the surface is probably badly pitted and you would need to plate with copper first. You dont need to heat the electrolyte for copper and you dont need demineralised water. It seems to work best with ordinary tap water - I understand. I have not done any copper plating yet!. Sorry if there are typos or spelling mistakes. I am off to work on my 421 J aerodynamic Hup and hopefully get it back on the road soon. If you have any other questions I will get back to you as soon as I can. Regards Alan

Hupp36 G'day Chuck Thanks for being willing to send the parts over so that I could make moulds (I would need both as they face different ways on each side of the car). Not many people would be prepared to do that so I really do appreciate your generosity immensely. I'd certainly look after them and get them back to you as soon as possible. I have been a member of the Hupmobile Club in America as well as in Australia for some years and I look forward to reading the "Parts Locator" each quarter, but I can't recall seeing a project for these parts. There is a simlar feature in the Australian Hup Register as well and I don't recall seeing these parts on the project list. However, if someone has already made them, that would also be excellent if you could track them down for me. Many thanks again and I look forward to hearing from you when you get back home. Best Regards Alan

Hupp36 Chuck, Thanks for the comments on the woodwork for the roadster. It's good to get the encouragement and to hear that the work I have been doing is looking good. I also have a 29 sedan - which I've had since 1965. She is part of the family. What I found immensely helpful when I was doing the roadster woodwork was that I spent some time beforehand drawing the car up on a computer. The main reason that I did the drawing was that I had no timber whatsoever nor any things like hinges for the rumble seat, hood bows etc. I did have the rear shell including the metal section that goes around the opening for the rumble seat. So I traced the outline of the metal piece on to paper and then measured distances and offsets so that I could reproduce the curve on the computer. I spent some time then fiddling with that curve and figured out where the hinge points were. I then got carried away and drew the plan, elevation, and a couple of sections through the car and made the timber and hinges etc from those drawings. The drawings worked well (the timber went straight in) and the investment of time was well worth it for me. Besides, having done the drawings, others might be able to use the drawings sometime. A long story -- but now you hopefully will know where I am coming from when I ask -- do you have any spare bits for the roadster?. I have made the hinges out of timber and the rumble seat works well. I will make a mould to cast them in bronze so no problem there. However, the pieces I am mainly interested in are the supports for the hood bows that attach to the door pillar. I have made them out of timber, and will cast them in bronze if there is no alternative; but if I could get the real ones, I'd feel more confident that they would be right. I made the timber ones based on fuzzy photos that a friend in Adelaide took when he was restoring his roadster. (Adelaide is about 2000 kms away from Brisbane so I can't go and have a look at them and the friend's roadster is fully restored so 99% of these bits are now covered by upholstery). Any assistance you could offer here (even if it is contact details of others who might be able to help) would be most welcome. I have attached a photo of the parts I am talking about. Regards Alan

Dean Just a note to thank you and those who commented on the re-wood of the roadster; which I rudely didn't do when the comments were posted originally. Hope you don't judge all Aussies by my poor manners. Just for interest, I finished the replacement part I made using lost wax and have attached a photo showing the part and the rubber insert for the end nearest the windscreen. Alan

G'day Hupp 36 Chuck, The kit is a manufactured kit called a "Jane" electroplating kit. It is available in Australia for about A$140 or about US$100. There is a website which you can find by googling jane and electroplating. The results I have achieved so far have been pretty good and I have found the results you get depend mainly on preparation (polishing) and cleanliness of the part before plating. The kit makes up about a 4 litre ( 1 gallon) solution, which is suitable for most small car parts. The kit has everything you need to nickel plate such as an adjustable power supply, crystals for electrolyte solution, nickel anodes, wires for hanging anodes and parts from aluminium hangers, connecting wires and nickel brightener. I listed the components so that you can see if something similar is available in your country. You can also buy copper plating materials for about A$50 extra. They also sell a part cleaning solution and a part washing solution. Good luck with your searching, and let me know if you need more information. Regards Alan

G'day Vern Thanks for following the thread and I hope you have learnt a bit about lost wax. I found that I learnt best by doing and so I hope you do have a go at making parts. I would be interested in seeing your results when you try one. Best regards Alan

At last I got around to nickel plating the part. I haven't brazed the bolts in yet - but as a trial, I heated up a spare internal door lever for the roadster which I had nickel plated. The nickel plating survived well after I had heated the lever to a dull red and the nickel went red then blue and black and every other colour in between these. I use an old Crock Pot for the electroplating bath which meant I had to plate the part in two dips. The finish is not absolutely perfect but it much better than the old one and it wont break if I drop it - which means I probably wont drop it!. This has been an interesting part to make and document. It is the largest that I have made so far and I was a bit worried about getting too much shrinkage. As it turned out the shrinkage was minimal and the end product would be very difficult to pick from the original -- even down to the original part number.

Just one additional photo. It shows what happens when you send a handle to the electroplaters and ask them to polish it prior to plating. They polished all the detail out!. That is why I was saying to do your own polishing and if you send a part out to be electroplated-- tell them NOT to polish it any further. Alan

G'day Vern I wasn't sure which wax mould you were interested in so I poured a wax impression of both the handle and the spline. As you can see in the photo, the rubber that I was using for the mould then was a lot different rubber to what I am using now. However you can see the shape of the join line in the timber mould. It follows the shape of the widest part of the handle. You can also see the wax impression of the spline. After the spline was cast, I turned it down to the correct diameter in the lathe, cut a groove for the C-clip and turned down a small pin at the end away form the spline. The pin was then brazed in to a hole in the handle.