JoelsBuicks

I hope you’ll visit the Buick Prewar forum. I have some questions there you might be able to help with. Questions related to the pics below. Thank You!

You all would get a kick out of looking through my scrap wood box. That’s where you’d find the screwups in various stages of completion. One would think that making boards that are mirror images of each other should be straightforward. But not for me - for some reason I lose my way, way too easily. Frustrating! Starting with the rear side windows, I test fitted the curved garnish. There are wood filler pieces that follow the garnish curvature and their primary purpose is backing for interior cloth. These wood filler pieces are each made from two pieces in order to not use weakened cross grain wood. I can’t use the old as patterns. I have to measure the new opening and the trace the curve. As you sell, I’m not done.

The structural wood is complete for all doors. I have been working on those horizontal boards that hold the window regulators, door latches and handles. These have a lot of cuts and shallow areas but the good news is the old boards are fairly solid and make excellent patterns. In fact, if it weren’t for some warping and cracking I would have considered reusing them.

Wow! That’s crazy - a factory set of replacement wood. I wonder if they are cut exactly as original or if they modified it to be placed inside a door as opposed to the way they built it new? I ended up with some boards that were still intact and solid. They’ll go into the same box with the others and stored forever or until someone needs them. I just can’t bring myself to throw them away.

That “funnel board” fits in across the very bottom of the door and is actually the board that receives the nails along the bottom. It is underneath and completely concealed by the wide board across the bottom. The metal flange at the bottom has a gap in it to allow water to drain. You’ll notice a little cutout area on that board that acts as a passage for the water. The ‘36 doors do not have this funnel board. Instead, they have a hole in the metal at the bottom and on each end of the door. The skin of the ‘36 door is continuous and curls completely around and nails into the wide board across the bottom. As I finish this 4th door I’ll try to do a better job of illustrating this. Followup on this: I dug out an original bottom board that directed water to the drain hole. I hope these pics better illustrate what is going on. I’m still amazed that there was only minor rust pitting on these doors.

I noticed several earlier pics show the metal pitting inside these doors. I was lucky that these were not through pits. All of this was sand blasted to bare metal and then epoxy coated. Before the wood, I did mix up some jbweld to fill those pits so they wouldn’t hold moisture. As I’ve said before, I’m too old to try and make the unseen parts perfect.

At the very bottom of all of these doors and completely hidden by the wide board across the bottom, Buick had a board that funneled water to the center of the door where there is a gap made for draining water. I took a couple pics of this board. Nearly all of these original boards were completely rotted away.

Yesterday’s goal was to glue up one back door. I’ll claim a victory or success or whatever you call it but I won’t be entering this in any beauty contest. One down one more to go. That wooden cradle didn’t so much ‘keep’ this door straight (untwisted) as it provided verification that once assembled and glued, it wasn’t twisted.

My 88 year old Dad usually occupies that chair. He’s as sharp as ever and he helps with the thinking - usually whether I ask for it or not! There is no way that I would tackle this without a fully equipped woodshop. Just today I can count 10 major stationary tools that I used. I often complain but there is satisfaction in meeting the challenge. Thanks again folks!

To finish off tonight’s posts, I wanted to mention how nice it is to have two table saws working. I have one of these set up with a stacked dado blade. I use this all the time but I also use regular saw blade as well. It would be painful to have to be changing these all the time. Thanks for watching!

The joint between that curved piece and the vertical member that holds the three hinges is critical to keeping things straight. It can be constructed identical to the original. That, however, doesn’t mean it’s easy.

I may be making this harder than it has to be but the rear doors are proving to be the bear that I had feared. And, it all has to do with having to assemble the wooden frame inside of a confined area. There’s probably more time spent just thinking it through than the actual cutting/fitting. I try to focus more on the desired outcome than on originality. I want a finished door that is strong, straight, functional and is capable of accepting nails and screws for holding its interior parts. This means that some joints (most all of them actually) will be different - different so that assembly is possible. Final assembly happens after successful dry rehearsal. Sequence is established before any glue is applied. I’m not there yet with these back doors. Those wide putty knives are used like shoehorns.

There is a metal separation at the lower hinge, shown in a picture. I know this will give me fits later so I decide to weld it together. If everything is done correctly with the woodwork, it would have ended up together anyhow. I hope I don’t end up dreading this. I’m positive that if Buick had a Millermatic wire welder back in 1931, this would already have been welded! Ok, I admit that two doors are pictured below but both will end up welded (as long as I don’t regret the first one!)

Here’s an important rewooding rule: save the worst for last. I’ve been dreading these back doors for a while. Three big reasons; that big curved piece has three sides compound curved, it is also part of a hinge and a critical joint, and most importantly, this door is susceptible to being glued up twisted. I could also mention that the belt board that fits up below the window is supposed to mortise into the two vertical members - but that’s now impossible so another way has to be created. I dug out this old door cradle that I used for a ‘36 rewood years ago. With some modifications, I have made it work for the back door. Again, this door has to be glued up without a twist.

This little corner brace is actually the old wood. It’s a nice solid piece of white oak. I’m going to reuse it!

Today, I installed the wood in both front doors. Again, I use the seam sealer on wood surfaces that are against the metal. This forms a strong bond in addition to all the nails and glue. (I’m sure Buick would have used seam sealer if it were available in 1931 🧐)

I have found that the easiest way to get the curves right is to use thin plywood and a small hand plane to shape the curve and repeatedly test and shape until the plywood as the right curve. Then I transfer the curve to a solid piece and cut it on a bandsaw.

No matter how rotted the original wood is, I use whatever is left as a guide for the new wood. Many times you can use one side to create the mirror image for the other side. This helps when pieces are almost all rotted away.

Wow, over three months since my last post. I have been busy trying to put my woodshop back together. It’s a rather long and boring story so in brief, I had a lot of woodworking tools that needed their own space. All of this in preparation to get the wood into my Buick doors. Originally, the door metal was placed around a wood frame and then the edges crimped around a metal jamb and then nailed onto the wood frame. Wood replacement now requires the wooden frame be built into the door. Basically this means the joinery and the assembly sequence needs to be planned.

Speaking from my knowledge of the ‘31 Model 67 only, the two tapered pieces are part of the interior garnish against the windshield on A pillar. I believe the single piece is a vertical garnish for C pillar. You should have another one someplace.

Cool, that stuff’s everywhere these days!

Give it a few weeks and when something starts to leak out at the bottom it will make more sense!

It’s all beautiful and tastefully done. Love that color combination on the flowers.

For my ‘31 I didn’t have all the original brass acorn nuts so I bought more hefty ones (5/16-24) and put them on. I suspected they were for balancing but never confirmed that. That looks like a nice original car.

Would you consider grinding them to reveal fresh metal and then fill with brass? File to shape?