Luv2Wrench

I am getting some work done. The focus right now is getting a paint booth that I can quickly setup and take down. I believe I have the details worked out and I'm waiting a few things to get shipped to me. I picked up an old 30" attic fan that moves a lot of air (7800CFM) and I've been doing a bit of restoration work on it since it lived outdoors before I rescued it. I have new bearings on order. Original 1/3HP motor is fine and the then 4 blades are in great condition. Unlike the modern version of these fans, the hub to which each blade attaches is a beefy cast aluminum piece, very impressive. Each blade is huge in comparison to the modern version and nice and sturdy. It is somewhat amazing to look at this old guy next to the modern version. Anyway, the new bearings should come in by end of next week and I'll have it back together by the weekend. I should get the remainder of the materials the next week and hope to have the paint booth completed by the next weekend. The basic concept is a semi-permenant structure along the ceiling that 4x8 sheets of Coroplast (basically white plastic cardboard) mount to with Velcro. In theory this will give me a 10'x16' paint booth that will be easy to store, quick to setup/take down and very functional. I've certainly made a mountain out of a molehill with this paint booth idea but I think it will be worth it in the long run. That's the hope anyway.

I hadn't thought of sealing the floorboards and since my car long since lost something like that... I didn't even know there was supposed to be something. Glad you posted about that, will certainly save me from having leaky floorboards.

Yep, I love the snow but I don't love what can come with it, so it is great to have it as a rare event. I was hoping to get some primer on the tub today and start assembling it tomorrow but it looks like that'll be pushed a day. My shoulder is much better but I'm having a hard time building up strength in them. They still feel like they are just one wrong move from disaster. Might be more mental than physical. My left knee is still pathetic and I don't really think it is going to get any better without a replacement and it really isn't bad enough to do that, so I'll just keep complaining about it and seeking pity. It makes a great excuse for things I don't want to do and until my son heads off to college next fall that works well. 😉

Here's a picture of the shop this morning... we don't see this very often here in Georgia. Some what of a freak snow. Forecast was for some flurries but warming to 42 and rain showers. We had some big flurries as predicted and it was 35, then we had a burst of snow and temp dropped to 31. Probably ended up with 2" an hour later. All done now, should be in shop later this afternoon.

Sorry to hear you've had a rough go lately but glad to hear you're feeling better and have some nice new toys to play with (well... when you get them home and sorted).

Good to see some more progress. How about some wide angle shots? I'm forgetting what's done and what's not. How do you like the shrinking disc and what size did you get? I have the 4" disc and I did some with it Friday night and it reminded me of just how ridiculously easy it is to shrink. It really changes your mindset as you can be a little more aggressive and not fret going too far.

I'd like to see another poll where modification is broken down into two parts. 1) Modified in keeping with original design, spirit, availability of materials and technologies. Swapping an injection system that routinely failed with one from a couple years before or after would be acceptable. Building a water pump from scratch while following period correct literature and design principles would be the high mark. 2) Dropping a small block 350 and Pinto chassis in. Another poll might be for non-member subscription fees for the website. Until I retire there's absolutely no way I can participate in anything other than the forums and since I've failed to locate the money tree, I do have to watch what I'm paying for. I would *gladly* pay a small, optional, for non-members only, subscription fee for forum access.

Great to see you back on the car Matt, I held out hope that would happen. You're right to want to crush it but you're also right to resume now and get it fixed. I think most of us have been there and felt it and we'll support you whatever you do. Over the years I've found that dragging my shortcomings out in to the glaring bright light seems to help them go away more than trying to keep them hidden in the shadows.

Slowly getting back out to the shop. Shoulder is mostly fine. One of the last things I did was patch the holes on each side of the scuttle. I'm getting them ready for paint now. I tried a test fit of the windscreen mounts and found that they were not even close. I didn't add enough curve to the patch pieces and that coupled with the shrinking from the welding caused a big loss of "curve" in that area. I spent some time yesterday and a little today getting the curve back to where the windscreen mounts fit nicely. There were some other places that needed a little bumping and I got those done as well. One of the rear inner fenders had 6 random 1/4" holes. I'm not sure what someone used them for at some point in the past but the only purpose they would serve now is to let moisture in to the back of the car. As such I filled those in with some weld. This turned out to be a lot easier than I had thought. I only needed to get a small pool going on one side and could dip the filler rod in and fill quickly to the other side. I found I could briefly hover over the filled area and get it back to a puddle and it would flatten and level itself. A couple of quick hits with the hammer/dolly before it cooled and all was well. I really hope to get primer on the tub by next weekend.

I don't think it is a shortcoming, rather just who you are. My path to simple always goes through complicated.

Certainly worth the work and more. Modern hardware looks so bad on a 100+ year old car. Job well done.

Can you post some more pictures of it before you get started?

^^ this... I've gotten my feet wet enough in machine work to know it is even harder than he makes it look.

Unfortunately I believe your experience is going to become (if it hasn't already) the norm. It is very difficult to find people with a passion for their work and willing to do things right unless that work pays a significant amount... and even then it is sometime lacking. Doing some right only for the sake of it being right is a foreign concept these days. I've preached this to my three kids since day one and, thankfully, they have taken it to heart.

Looks great, congrats on a major milestone!!!

My apologies if you mentioned this earlier... did the casting for the center cam bearing break and that's the reason for your support? Looks like a nice solution to the problem if that's what it is.

Do you have a feed rate on your mill for a 3 hour cut or did you have to advance that manually? Probably a silly question but now that I have a mill that I'll hopefully be using this year, just about any post with a mill in it catches my curiosity.

Wonderful car, thanks for sharing with us! I've found that most every "strange" decision made perfect sense at the time it was made.

Thanks! As I mentioned I read about this technique on the Caswell forum and the guy that did it has a website with all the instructions. However, one of the things I decided to do differently was drill holes in the bowl rather than use a soldering iron. After 6 attempts (including 4 ruined bowls) I decided to use the soldering iron. I was trying to avoid the fumes and mess but the bowl is "microwave safe" and is thus made out of something that doesn't really stink when melted and had some wonderful clumping like properties when melted. It appears the guy's site is down right now, when it is back up I'll edit this post and add a link.

It is zinc with a clear chromate (which give it a little blue color).

Thanks! I did make the term up so that might be why it doesn't sound familiar. It is a barrel plating system but made with a bowl instead of a barrel... I melted holes in the bowl with a large soldering iron. Having a full barrel would have taken up a lot of room and thus a lot of plating solution. I got the idea from a poster in the Caswell plating forum. I modified it slightly but it is pretty much the same.

I got the semi-barrel plater done and it worked pretty well. I need to work on the dangler as it spent too much time plating itself (and creating general electrolytic havoc) instead of maintaining contact with the parts to be plated. I have some ideas and I think this will be pretty easy to fix. I also want to look at increasing the rotation speed. The bbq rotisserie motor I got doesn't have a speed control and it goes really slow. The parts tend to stick together and make their way to near the top before gravity takes over and they fall to the bottom. I need to get a little more tumble action. All that said, I put 25 nuts/bolts in there and 40 minutes later had a nice plate. I still have to clean each one before plating and they need a quick touch-up on a soft wire wheel after to get the nice shine, but that's a heck of a lots less work than wiring each one not too mention I could only plate 5 things at a time before.

If you could bottle and sell your patience you'd be a very, very rich man.

Been there, done that. I was innocently removing some paint from the framework and some "overspray" from the blaster stretched the sheet metal... had to get a new hood.

Thank John, I hope PT goes well for your wife. Today has been remarkably better than yesterday and I actually got a nice sleep last night. I'm feeling very optimistic.