floor thickness

[fh4ever]

I need to replace what is left of the trunk floor above the gas tank on the '39 commander.  Anyone know what ga steel was original?  20 ga seems close but there is not much left to get a good measurement.  The undercoating preserved the rest of the floor very well. However, it was not coated above the gas tank and that area is now Swiss cheese.  I can recognize where the beads are rolled into the floor and I will be duplicating those for strength.   I can cut it out to the good steel and maybe get a better measurement, but I thought I would seek advice here first.   I want to make sure it is not too thin that it will sag and rest on top of the gas tank. ...or too thick making it harder to work.     thanks

[fh4ever]

i cut out the trunk floor, the curved section just behind the seat, and the "tool box".  closet matching thickness seems to be 20 ga,   

 

 

first, the tool box" goes back in...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[fh4ever]

fabricated the floor,  

 

had to make the male and female "coining tool" for the ends of the "wide" beads. 

 

finished floor in primer !!!....

[fh4ever]

before I could really get started on the "tool box" work, the rear valance needed a lot of attention, both on the inside and outside....I had to completely replaced the lower 1-2" and the weather strip channel.    Here it is just before the floor work began.  

 

 

 

[fh4ever]

one more pic....here she is freshly bathed after all that dusty work.....now ready for the front and back glass, and upholstery.  

 

 

 

[George Rohrbach]

Very, very nice work!

[37S2de]

That looks very nice. I am impressed that the floor panel looks so flat after putting in the beads.  Every time I roll beads I wind up with a warped panel and it is a wrestling match to get it flat again.  Very nice layout and execution. I’d be interested in more pictures of your “coining tool”. I have struggled with getting the ends of beads rounded also.

 

Tom

[fh4ever]

thanks for the kind words.   I studied up on it a good bit, made my own wide rolling dies, did about a dozen samples, and went for it.  You are right, the panel really does want to warp.  I followed a post on the H.A.M.B. that helped me out a lot.     Pre-stretching on an english wheel helps, but as you can see, I still have the potato chip edge on the right side of the panel (no attempts made at that point to flatten it).  The coining tool also helped to flatten it out some....and then heating it and shrinking it helps. 

Here you can see more of the coining tool I made.  The long flat bars (welded together on the left)  keeps the two halves aligned....  and it had to be that long to fit over the panel.  The large diameter of the  2 halves should also help flatten the surrounding metal at the end of the bead.  I placed a center mark on the back side of the bead... and aligned it  with the the hole to center the tool on the bead.  A press would have been great but I have none with a large throat....so 2 or 3 blows with a heavy hammer worked just fine.   

 

 

and here is the back side of one of the last test samples before moving on to the real deal....notice the center marks for tool alignment.   And the attempt to shrink the edges which did help. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Spinneyhill]

Very impressive! '40 headlights? I spent hours while seriously ill fixing my '39 headlight shells, then in 1997 at the South Bend meeting Stephen Allen sold me an NOS RHD headlight complete!

[37S2de]

Thank you for the follow up. Obviously some serious planning went into that panel. You said you made your own rolling dies.  Was the groove in the female side of the coining tool made the same size as the rolling die?  I can see where the tools all have to match and different rolling dies would need a different set of coining tools. I have a lathe and milling machine, so someday I might try it.

 

Your mention of following a post on the HAMB reminded me that almost anything these days can be found on YouTube. I googled “rolling beads in sheet metal” and learned more in a short time than I’ve learned in 25 years of trying it by myself.  I’m probably a little too old to be thinking about making or buying an English Wheel, though.

 

Tom

[fh4ever]

hiya 37S2de, your skill level sounds a lot like mine.   As you are probably aware, the smaller beads present less of a problem....but these wide beads wreak havoc on the panel!!   The groove in the female coin tool is about 2mm  wider than the female rolling die....certainly not intentional.......and I believe this extra space made it more forgiving.    I would have used the same outside diameter blanks for both coin tool pieces, but it was all I had..that is why the male is smaller than the female.  I really hesitated buying the english wheel as I thought this might be a one time use, let's hope that is not the case!   I am starting to get a little too old too...to try some things, but its only now I have the means that I can give it a try. 

Spinney...both my grand-dad's car and mine have these headlights....it wasn't till I joined this site I realized these are '40 headlights.  I guess someone changed them out over the years.  I modified the park light socket to use the double filament bulbs so I have turn signals at four corners.  

[rbk]

Yes , even the Studebaker factory encouraged the dealers to install the 1940 headlights since they were the first ones used by Studebaker that used sealed beams.

Packard Farms  had hundreds of the headlights years ago and SI had them in their catalog but are out of them now.

Last I heard was that Stephan Allen still had a few.