AntiqueCraftsman

Anyone here know what became of this Buick? I noticed the ad is no longer available. Just wondering if it went to a good home or ended up being scraped.

It will be interesting to see if anyone actually buys these for 2G or more. The auction has 6 days to go at the time of this post. I personally prefer the 4-doors. I'm a pragmatic fogie. And if you actually use the car to haul around 3 of your friends the people sitting in the back really appreciate having their own personal doors. ? 2-door rodders probably don't have many friends. (hee hee) just kidding.

What's wrong with a 4 door? That makes it easier for people to get into the back seat. I paid $1800 less for mine and I got two more doors to boot. I'm not going to complain about that. ?

I agree, there's always the threat of being harassed by jerk cops. I'll keep that in mind. That's not my style of designing. Just one bilge pump and run it directly off the main engine. No batteries required. Also, for day-sailing, where you put the boat in the river in the morning and take it out that evening, you're not likely going to need to even use it at all. Where the bilge pump will come in handy is when you decide to dock the boat in the water for the entire weekend or week. Then you can just start the motor up and pump her out once in a while. I could even rig that up to happen automatically via water level sensors. I haven't really thought about rigging it up to have it automatically pump itself out because I'm thinking one-day sailing trips. But yeah, now that youv'e mentioned it installing an automatic bilge pump probably wouldn't hurt. That would be a nice touch. There probably will be times when we'll want to put them in for a whole weekend or more. I'm not really designing them as "sleepers". We'd need to just sleep out on the open deck. Yeah, it probably wouldn't hurt to put automated bilge pumps in them just in case we decide to sleep over. I definitely expect them to leak to some degree.

Hey! There's no motor or transmission with that car either! I got the motor and tranny with mine.

Hey, I just found another one in about the same condition. They are asking $2000 for theirs! On eBay I only paid $200 for mine. ? https://www.ebay.com/itm/1954-Chevrolet-Bel-Air-150-210-belair/153105516667?hash=item23a5ccc87b:g:wwcAAOSw3thbT~BI&vxp=mtr

UPDATE on the 1954 Chevy restoration project: Today I took a few moments to unbolt the hood, trunk lid, and all four doors where the hinges meet the body pillars. I thought this was going to be impossible to get the bolts out and that they would mostly either break or strip. But to my utter shock and amazement I was able to get every single bolt out without breaking or stripping a single solitary bolt. I'm calling this a "restoration project", but that's just a play on words. I really don't know where I'm going with this yet. I want to strip this car down into pieces no matter what I do with it. Even as scrap metal it brings more money broken down into smaller pieces. Not only that but I collect screw and hinges, etc. If I don't use them on a car I might end up using them on some other project. I'm always building something. In any case, I just thought I'd report that things went quite well thus far. I'm working on trying to remove the front fenders next. I got quite a few bolts out of one fender so far. One bolt is stripped, and some of the others I'm not sure how to get at. I'm going to try to remove the fenders without damaging them if at all possible. I won't go too far out of my way. If it proves to be too much work to take it apart nicely I'll start ripping it up for scrap metal. But thus far things have been coming apart quite well. I also found a new paint job I really like for this car. If I decide to put the body back together I think I'll go for this one solid color. I really like it.

Agreed. Besides, by the time I get these boats built I'll probably be dead anyway, so why worry about problems I'm never going to have? ?

I live in a real nice community. The law enforcement people around here are very anxious to help you out. They will often point you to the legal loopholes that you'll need to do what it is you want to do. The absolute worst case scenario is that I would need to power all four barges and just take them out on the river side-by-side without actually tying them together. We already know that's legal. As far as the special permits and license for a "Big Boat", that woudln't come into play because they would all be registered individually as "small craft". It wouldn't be registered as one "Big Boat". So there won't be any "Big Boat" to license or permit. In fact, that's one of the many reasons to keep the whole shebang as four individual small boats. I said on this forum that it's a "four-piece Riverboat". But it's not going to be registered as a four-piece Riverboat. As far as the law is concerned, it's four individual small craft. As I say. Absolute worse case scenario is that I will need to power all four of them and just not physically tie them together. Problem solved.

So you want the entire history of the idea? Ok, here's the scoop. Once upon a time in a dark mysterious forest there was a lazy river that flowed quietly along. Human activity was a rare sight and it was a nature lover's dream. Then along came myself and two of my friends making all manner of clatter putting an aluminum canoe into the river. I also had a guitar, as did one of my friends, and my other buddy had a set of bongos. We took to the river making music that would drive any sane naturalist away from the area for miles around. Fortunately for us there were occasionally other crazy people around who enjoyed our noise. As the river of time flowed forward other musical maniacs started joining our party. On various occasions we had as many as 5 canoes floating down the river making beautiful music to drive away any remaining naturalists. Then the idea came up that we should get a bigger raft. Perhaps a pontoon boat? But even that would be a bit small to hold the whole group of musical monkeys. So being one of the most ridiculous monkeys of the group I proposed the idea of building a 4-piece "Riverboat" made from four barges all tied together. The other monkeys thought this was a great idea and said that if I cut down the trees and make the lumber they would help me build the boats. And so the idea was born and has begun to materialize ever so slowly. Fortunately all the monkeys in the group are very patient and have no extreme expectations. And so that's where we are today. By the way, some added features of this project is that we only need to build one barge at a time. If all we built was the first "Tug boat", then we'd have a nice little boat that at least a few of us could enjoy at a time. Add a second barge and we could push that around with the first boat. And who knows? Maybe someday we'll finish all four of them and end up with the original dream. It's an extremely low-cost project, if you don't count the labor. The trees are free, so all we need is some gas for the chainsaw and sawmill. Then a few fasteners and glue. Finally some paint which might run into a bit of money, but if we're ready to paint it then it's coming along pretty well. And finally the biggest cost will be the actual Briggs and Stratton engines. I chose to go with those because they are low-maintenance and will serve the purpose. I've also been toying with the idea of using an engine out of a car. Something like a 4-cyl old Ford Escort engine. The only problem there is that it gets into being water cooled which makes it more complicated. The Briggs and Stratton Engines might end up actually being more economical in the long run. And they aren't really all that expensive. Especially if all the musical monkeys pitch in. They might do that when the boat is looking like it's ready to be launched. The naturalists are going to be really ticked when they see all these monkeys coming down the peaceful river making all their musical noise. This is why the Riverboat needs to be easily portable, so we can quickly escape the angry naturalists after our Riverboat gig.

Ok, you caught me in a lie (kind of). I don't actually have the boat yet. It's still on the drawing board. ? I'm hoping to make it out of wood. I actually have a sawmill and started cutting lumber for it. But obviously it's going to be a very long time before it's actually built. This is why I have time to restore four old trucks to tow it with in the meantime. (ha ha) It's a very simple design. It's basically four wooden barges (I'd make them out of modern lighter materials but for me lumber is FREE, so gotta go with what's free). Two of the barges are just plain flat decks. Each one being 8' wide and 16' long. The other two barges are powered by large paddle wheels in the back. These two boats are separate, and are the "Tug Boats". You take all four boats down to the river, place one of the barges in front of each Tug, and then pull the two Tugs next to each other and then tie them together as well. What you end up with is a make-shift "Riverboat" that is 16' wide and "32 feet long. The BEAUTY of it is that it's easily portable as four separate units. So it can be put in an out of the river quite easily. Assuming you have lots of friends who want to go boating. I should mention that my friends are also musicians, and the reason we want a large flat deck is so we can set up our musical instruments and play music whilst floating down the river. Just for fun. Admittedly this is most likely a dream that will never be completed. None the less, it is a dream and it has been physically started. At least in terms of cutting some of the raw material. I've also designed it in a 3-D CAD software (but then LOST the drawings!). Here's a screen shot of some of the CAD drawings. (unfortunately I have since lost the original CAD drawings due to a computer disk failure). Fortunately the design is so simple I really don't need the drawings to actually build it. It's very simple design. Here are some pictures of the drawings that I was able to save because I had uploaded them to the Internet: These are VERY CRUDE drawings. The actual boats will be far more detailed and prettier. This is a side view drawing in I made in 2D. The following drawings are in 3D. But not nearly as detailed. For example the paddle-wheel in this drawing is just depicted as a red cylinder. But it would obviously be a more complex paddle wheel as depicted in the 2D drawing above. The following picture is just of one of the tug boats. Below gives an idea of what the finished "Riverboat" will look like when completely assembled. It's going to be a very SLOW Riverboat. Each Tugboat will be powered by an 18hp Briggs and Stratton twin cylinder engine giving the whole rig a total of 36 hp. It's not designed for speed. We don't plan on going anywhere far. We just want to go down to the river and play music out on the water. It's kind of like a floating stage if you want to think of it that way, Like I say, it's an extremely simple design. Basically four identical barges, and then two of them are powered by a paddle wheel. The only "cabin" is for the pilots. Everything else is open. Before we get into a lot of controversy, I totally AGREE that there would be far better materials to build this from. But it's actually going to be quite light because I'm using a special woodworking technique to build the hulls. In fact, I had detailed drawings of how the hulls are going to be built. They will be sectioned off which allows them to be made of thinner wood, as well adding a feature of safety should the hull be compromised. Only one section would then leak. Also as slow as these boats will go there won't be any risk of a high speed crash. Anyway, that's the idea. The project is in progress. But it's in a very early stage to be sure. In fact, I haven't even finished cutting down all the trees for the lumber. So it will be a while before the actual construction begins.

Yes, I've been toying with that idea. I already have a 1990 Ford Ranger here that runs just fine. I might look into fitting this body on that frame. Although the major difficulty there is in getting the steering wheel mechanism to line up. Lots of mechanical fabrication just in that area alone. Not an impossible task, but it certainly requires some engineering acrobatics. Other than that one major connection, everything else appears to be fairly doable. The wheel base is fairly close already.

You can always tell a good mechanic by the way they spell "Brake the bank". ?

Owl - a nocturnal bird of prey with large forward-facing eyes surrounded by facial disks, also an artistic substitute for the contraction "I'll", that is often used by AntiqueCraftsman during cyber communications on Internet forums. He also uses this artistic substitution in verbal communications as well, but it may go unnoticed in those situations depending on the vernacular dialect locally spoken. Where I grew up everyone pronounced "I'll" as "owl". Owl do this, and owl do that, and owl be right back.

Well, see. You've already been buying a bunch of junk for decades that you never needed. Apparently you're already a well-seasoned member of this sort of addiction. I feel like I'm at a meeting of JCA "Junk Cars Anonymous". Thanks for giving your testimony. Owl take that into consideration the next time I feel the urge to buy more junk.

That;s more like it. Encouragement I'd never get from any other source. This is the beauty of the Internet! ?

Agreed. Although they say that something is worth whatever someone will pay for it. Well there may be someone out there who would pay $6000 for that truck. But it sure ain't me.

I love it! And to me it is an antique with hand-crank windows and a very simple 3-speed stick and 6-cyl engine. It's my "antique truck". But let's face it, it's not quite as cool as a truck from the 40's. But it's a lot cheaper to work on fer sure!

Have you called the guy? He's real easy to talk with. He says in the ad the price is negotiable. I called him and offered him $500. He didn't cringe. In fact, he said he wanted to talk it over with his wife and he'd get back to me. But he never called back. That was about a week ago. I was going to call him back and see what his answer was, but then I just decided I didn't want to drive that far. Although for me it's only about 100 miles. I just don't feel like making the trip right now. If you call him and offer him $500 there's a good chance he'll take it. He says in the ad "save it from the scrap yard". So apparently he's thinking about taking it in for metal scrap prices. I don't think he''d get much more then $300 to $400 max at the scrap yard. If that. So he'd be better off selling it for $500 and let someone else haul it away. He needs to get it out of there, so he doesn't want to hang onto it too much longer. Let me know if you pick it up. Supposedly the only part that is missing is the 4bbl carb. A $300 item for a "new refurbished" one. Or hopefully you could find a cheap used carb somewhere. He also says the starter motor is in the trunk. He didn't say why it was taken off. Probably something wrong with the starter motor too. But at least you have the starter and could possibly repair it. Pick it up and save it from the scrap yard. I'll subscribe to your restoration thread and watch you restore it. ? I originally thought it was a 2-dr. But apparently it's a 4-dr. That doesn't bother me. I'd take it anyway. Call him up and offer him $500. What do you have to lose? It's a cool looking car.

You are indeed right. There are ways to make money on the Internet. And I have been looking into that. I build robots and I've been thinking about starting a YouTube channel with robot building tutorials. From what I understand there's money to be made on YouTube. I'm not sure how the money is made, but it is something I'm looking into. Making YouTube videos on robotics would probably be far less work than trying to buy and sell trucks or cars. Although I've actually been thinking about doing that as well. I might make some money on this '54 Chevy I just bought. I was out there today taking parts off it. It needs to be disassembled anyway. So I'm working on it.

I already bring my lunch in a bag. I'm at a level of poverty that probably isn't respectable to even talk about. Also, please don't mistake anything I've said as "complaining". I'm not complaining, I'm just telling it like it is. The most realistic dream would be to just grab four 1992 Ford pick ups like the one I already have. I got mine for exactly $1000. I could probably grab three more at the same price and I'd have my fleet of four pick ups for a mere $4000. Of course they wouldn't be antiques. But having the antique trucks is the "dream". I could have four of those pretty quick. That's basically what I'm currently driving. No frills. 6-cyl, 4-speed stick, with roll up windows. It does have air conditioning too. Mine is also 2wd. Mine isn't quite as sharp as the one pictured here, but pretty darn close. I could have four of these for $4000 fairly quickly. But try doing that with a 1948 Ford Pick-up. Not so easy.

I could just call my sister up if I wanted that kind of advice. I joined an antique car forum on the internet in the hopes of finding people as nuts as myself. I agree, it would be nice to just buy the dream vehicle. But the prices are simply too high. To begin with I'm not going to pay big bucks for something I'm going to need to work on for a couple years anyway. And something that's ready to just jump in and drive away isn't going to be just $2000. Especially not something I "Truly Want". I've seen some decent cars that are derivable for that price, but they aren't want I "truly want" either. So why pay big bucks for something I don't really want? I didn't really want a '47 Fleetline either. I "settled" for it because the price was right. And guess what? It's really grown on me. I'm very happy with this car now. I really really really like it. Way more than I thought I would. But then again it's SOLID AS A ROCK. It's a really nice car. I really lucked out to get this baby for sure. And no regrets buying the '47 Fleetline. I'm not looking for a second project car because I've lost interest in the Fleetline. I would just like to end up with more than one antique car. I'm greedy that way. I actually have a '92 Ford Pick-up that I kind of consider to be an "antique" already. No air bag, manual shift, manual window cranks. It's a pretty basic truck. I love it. I really wanted an older truck just for the appearance. It's certainly not something I actually "need". (don't tell my sister) Although I could actually use four of them. Why? Because I have a "Riverboat" that comes apart in four sections and needs to be towed on four trailers. So my real "dream" is to have four old pickup trucks just to two this four-piece riverboat down to the river. From a practical point of view the trucks should be in the late forties. Something like this: Four of those would be ideal. But I can't even find one! Especially not at the price I want to pay. (ha ha) So I'll just end up with a bunch of other old cars and drive them around whilst dreaming of the four pick-up trucks I never had. Four of the following would be even cooler. But may not as practical in terms of actually hauling the Riverboat sections. I have tons of dreams, but no money to make them come true.

What a bunch of party poopers you guys are. I can't even get any sympathy on an antique car forum. This speaks volumes of how utterly worthless the Internet is. ? Ok, let me explain my flavor of mental illness, and maybe I can squeak out a few drops of empathy. What I really wanted was an old pick-up truck from the early '30's. I couldn't find anything suitable for a rebuild at a reasonable price. Especially locally. I did find some junk that was just a body on frame (basically a "roller" with no engine or drive train, usually no interior, and often with no glass either. And even then the price for a totally empty carcass was more than I had in mind. Then one day I saw a local ad for a 1930 Ford sedan project car, complete and RUNS for $900. I nearly broke my fingers pushing the buttons on my phone to call the guy. Only a few miles from my house too! Unfortunately, he was already filling out the paper work with the lucky buyer. I was sick to my stomach for a month after that. I'll never see a deal like that again. I'll grant you it wasn't a pick up truck. But it was a 1930 Ford Sedan for only $900. I said to myself, "Ok that's it! I'm buying the first complete old car I can find at a decent prices, and I don't care what it is". So I set up Craiglist to send me alerts for anything from 1900, clear up to 1960. My only criteria is that it needs to be complete with all glass, engine and drive train and be really CHEAP. (hee hee) I waited for months before I finally got my '47 Fleetline that met this criteria. And I'm still pinching myself with disbelief that I got such a fine specimen for the price I wanted. It has all the glass, the body is really decent. It runs, and moves under its own power. Had a complete interior, only needed reupholstered. It's a GREAT DEAL, and I'd consider myself extremely lucky to do as well again. Especially for a 1947. I love those OLD cars. It's not quite a 1930, but still not bad, considering that I was even going to settle for something from the 60's. So anyway, I'm still getting alerts from Craiglist that meet my criteria. That's where I found this parts car for $200. And by the way that's the cheapest car I've ever seen on Craiglist yet in ANY condition. The '56 Buick was actually listed at $1000, but when I called the guy he said he would take $500 for it. It's not a 1930 pick up truck. It's not even a stick shift. But it's only $500! Owl take it! And I would have too had it been closer. I'm just too lazy to drive that far to get it. I guess what I really need to do is go back into Craiglist and turn off those alerts huh? I've been getting quite a few of them. Most are way too expensive for the absolute junk they truly are. Anything really decent is usually either extremely expensive, or already sold by the time I break my fingers dialing the phone number. On a positive note. I have seen some pretty nice cars from the 60's for between $2000 to $3000. These are cars you could just jump in and start driving right away. But I really wanted something older. I should just be happy with the '47 Fleetline I already got. I do feel very LUCKY to have picked that baby up. If I find another deal like like that I'm buying it! I don't care what you party poopers say.

By golly I think you're right. It does look like there's a rear door handle back there. I thought he said it was a 2-dr coupe. Well, it's too far away anyhow. I'm not going to drive that far to get it. But yeah, if it was right next door I'd probably take it even as a 4-dr. It's hard to find an old car that complete for only $500. At least around here where I live in Pennsylvania. Out in the dry western states there are probably quite a few decent old cars laying around. But in PA they turn into a pile of rust overnight.

The interior "kit" that you pointed to was $1500, and that was the "half-off" price. They wanted over $3000 for it originally. Granted all the work was done and it would just be a matter of screwing the new door panels in place. Easy job to be sure! But still, lots of money for the parts. Plus could I really say that I restored the car myself when all I did was buy restored parts and screw them on? Instead I chose to spend $150 on canvas and Naugahyde and sew up my own new door panels and seat covers. That job's coming along pretty well. And I'm using an antique Singer sewing machine too boot. People were telling me that I would need a $1000 professional upholstery sewing machine with a "walking foot". But this old Singer works just fine. You just have to know what you're doing to do use. You have to "help" the material through the foot. It's no big deal. It's working out just great. So this is TEN TIMES less money spent. Granted it will require TEN TIMES more labor on my part, but at least when I'm done with the job I can sing "I did it my way". ? Then seeing that I saved $1350 on this interior job I figured I owed myself at least a $200 parts car. I'm actually looking at another car right now too for $500,... It's a 1956 Buick Super 2-dr. A fairly rare automobile. It's basically a 2-dr coupe on a Roadmaster chassis. The only problem with this car is that it's a lot further from me, so a lot bigger trip to go get it. That's the bit obstacle there. If this car was close to me it would already be sitting in my back yard as we speak. Trust me on that one!