Roger Zimmermann

Only some little progress since the last time. Up to now, I had only half the rear wheelhouses done; it's time to make the second halves, the ones towards the fender. Again, not an easy task because nothing is definitively stable, except the floor. After much trial and error, the RH wheelhouse is complete. It's not yet soldered to the floor because it will first be soldered to the fender and then to the floor. It's not the way it should be done but I need some space to solder the wheelhouse to the fender and it's easier this way. Once this step will be done, the fender assembly can be soldered to the floor.

After the filler between the rear bumper and lamps was silver soldered, I spent the last few days doing the trunk floor extensions These are the sheet metal parts attaching the rear fender's to the trunk's floor. The difficulty here is to get some proper alignment from the fenders in relation to the floor, and adapt those extensions without disturbing the rear fenders position. By doing a final check this morning, I noticed that no dimension at the rear was correct until I saw that the back of the fenders were too much inboard. Fortunately, brass is rather soft and the shape could be corrected without creating a mess. Both bars between fenders are a temporary help for the alignment; everything is held with screws for the moment.

Welcome (again) on that forum, Philippe! As you can probably see, I'm active there too...

To align the body panels in a decent way, something else as the actual model's frame was needed. With profiles I will never use on a model, I did a sub-frame attached on the base plate I already had for the wood form. I should have done this too earlier as I found some dimension's deviations, fortunately not bad ones. The last picture is showing the floor with the rear fenders on. Don't be fooled by the picture: the rear fenders are just attached with one small screw at the incomplete "B" pillar and are way off alignment.

This is a German text on that bottle!

In Switzerland and probably whole Europe, it's not allowed to mix cross ply tires and radial tires on the same vehicle.

The aperture at the "B" pillar was trimmed and a partial pillar was silver soldered to the fenders. As the recess for the rocker molding is already done on the floor, this part, in front of the rear wheel, was removed too. I did it at first because I needed the line for alignment purpose.

The second fender took only 2 afternoons to be shaped. However, the rear fenders are far from ready. The small thing you see behind each fender is the "tongue" between rear bumper and lamp. But how to assemble that on the fender? To have some starting point, I silver soldered the lower braces and the upper shield on which the lamp will be attached. But I'm still unsure if the tongue is correctly positioned. To have some mechanical strength at the rear, the assemblies will be also silver soldered to the fenders, therefore no error is allowed. To get it right, I will now trim the rear fenders at the "B" pillar, and add it. This will allow me to position and temporary attach the fenders on the floor. Then, I will be able to check the position of the tongues.

Nice job! Now you have a car which is not a sore to the eyes! However, this nice move is dangerous: you will hate your inside trim...

Thanks Art! I don't know if I can be compared to the three gentlemen (the first two are probably no more in "business"); anyway, I'm trying!

Thank you Donald for that amazing video. That boy is well known but I probably never saw it so detailed. In comparison, my model is a crude toy! Anyway, the outer shell for the rear fender is done; I'm pleased with the result. I will now probably do the RH part before I'm doing the part which is going from the rear fender's peak to the trunk aperture.

It seems that we are both beating sheet metal panels: aluminum for you and brass for me. Just the scale is different! This body is good looking! Can you weld aluminum?

Up to now the progress is satisfying. To locate the rear fender, I did three 1 mm holes through excess sheet metal and wood. Now, the fender is conveniently located and I could press the bulge under the rear lamp. The wheel opening is pre-formed; to continue, I must first do the recess for the lower rocker molding. I have to consider the thickness of the sheet metal and compensate by modifying the wood form (one more time) otherwise, the rocker molding will be located too low. To form the flange at the wheel opening I had to reinforce the wood with a thin strip of brass: during a test with a small strip of brass, I noticed that the wood is not strong enough and let go, giving a too large radius.

Are the roof and doors not serious? In one sense yes, but without the structure to attach them, they are just decoration...That structure will begin with the rear fenders; eventually, they will get soldered to the floor. However, I still have a long way to go before that. The picture is showing the beginning of the rear fender; the long bars are the dies to form the crease.

Nice chrome! I would put some paint on the inside of bumper/bumperettes; usually those spots are not so well treated than the outside and can rust rather quickly if not protected.

Thank you Donald! It seems that Swiss talents is the reason why we have such a high living standard v/s the other surrounding countries. We don't have oil but ideas! BBC/ABB has a good reputation worldwide.

After our nice autumn vacation, I could continue with the model. I intend to use the same procedure than with the doors: the shape of the rear fenders and trunk lid will be checked against the negative mold made with polyester and not on the wood for various reasons. Before I could play with polyester and fiberglass, I modified again the hood and trunk lid, because, when I went to see my friend, owner of 4 Mark II, I noticed that both elements still had too sharp lines. The first task at my return was to perform the changes. On the attached picture there is a dark spot on the trunk lid: I noticed with horror that this spot was 1 mm below the "right" dimension, an error I did at the beginning of the wood work; the correction was done with bondo. As we enjoy for a few days a nice weather in Switzerland, there was the opportunity to "cast" the negative mold as I'm doing that job outside to avoid the bad smell in the flat. I screwed certainly with the hardener twice: I could not finish to saturating the fiber glass with the polyester before it began to set. To avoid the waste, I covered what was done with that jelly; I had never such an ugly mold! As it's just a tool, this is not so important...

Does the front bumper not prevent to have a nice job in that location? I would remove it.

Did the same for the other side. As I'm presently away from home, the doors are waiting my return...

Just buff the body and it's ready to show! There is still air in the tires...

Finally, I decided for an easy part, the doors. Easy? Not so! I expected to do the outer skin in one piece but the peak at the top is the difficulty. To have it at the right place is difficult; the one I did was not where I expected...Furthermore, my line was not straight like the original door. Therefore, I cut the door at the peak and planned to silver solder the remaining. As the soldering can hardly be done without some trick, I soldered first a channel under the skin on which the missing piece could be soldered, without deformation if possible. Because of the channel, I cannot check or correct the shape of the door's skin on the wood buck. To overcome the problem, I did a negative mold with polyester and fiberglass. As it's thick enough, I can also make some correction to the skin while it's placed on the polyester mold. The picture is showing the first door's skin and the polyester mold.

Why temporary? Because, as you can see, most internal structure is done. This structure has positive effect on the strength of the roof and it's the foundation for the upper trim. However, to attach them to the roof I should first do them, which is way too early. The side moldings are attached from the side rail but the front and rear window moldings are attached by screws through the structure. When I'm so far, I will add what is needed to attach them. The long legs at the rear will be soldered to the rear wheelhouses. They will be trimmed as needed. I will now do either doors or rear quarters. The later parts would make more sense than the doors because I could at least attach them to the floor. But the doors are easier do do...

The last few days I trimmed the apertures for side windows, windshield and back window. I then discovered that my wood buck was not square! It was not a lot, but enough to see that the windshield aperture was not correct. And, of course, the rear window was also affected...I removed a little bit of wood on one side (RH in front, LH at the back) to correct the issue. The roof may be a tad too short after the correction (probably 1 mm - 0.04"), but can be compensated by the rain gutter at the front. I soldered the gutter to the roof; normally it represents a "U" but the distance is so tight (0.5 mm), it could create problems when finishing the roof. Anyway, the chrome molding will be correctly shaped and will not snap on the roof like the real ones are attached. I'm now preparing the inner structure.

No, you are not seeing double! There are effectively two roofs on the picture. Doing another body just for fun? No! 3 days ago, I soft soldered both halves from the indeed second roof. Took a very thin strip of brass (0.1mm) which was probably an error; maybe a thicker material would have caused less trouble. Before soldering, the roof was almost perfect. After soldering, I had all kind of deformations...Not very important, but enough to be a concern. Then I discovered that my soldering may not be perfect and, with the inevitable flexion of the roof during construction, a crack may develop at the joint. If it's during the construction it can be easily repaired but, if it happens after the car is painted...No good at all! Therefore, I decided to do a third roof as I have some experience! Doing it in one piece is more difficult as in two pieces as there are four sides which must be cared for instead of 3. The result is not too bad, with one exception: the roof is more bulbous than the wood buck, about 1 mm. By chance, the roof is not looking like the one from a VW Beetle! There are certainly techniques to bring the excess metal down (it was what I tried with the first one), but I will do nothing as the buck may be itself too flat... The "good" roof is in foreground.

Both are missing the same pages. No problem, they go in my store room again...