Replacing Wood on 1912 Roadster body

[Rod Wise]

The back of the body was very loose with a number of rotted pieces of wood,  When the delaminating ply was removed I couldn,t  believe the number of small pieces of wood that were used. Even the larger pieces were made up by joining smaller pieces.  Didn,t think there was a wood shortage in 1912.

Edited March 8, 2022 by Rod Wise (see edit history)

[NZ Buick]

This is a job I’m not looking forward to with my 1919 tourer restoration! I have practically nothing left to work with in terms of wood work just a whole pile of floppy sheet metal

[Morgan Wright]

Major wood shortage was from 1880 to 1900, most of the forest in eastern USA had been cleared by then, forcing people to switch to coal. People heated houses with wood, trains ran on wood, factories were powered by wood, entire states were deforested. Once we switched to coal around 1890 or 1900, the trees started to grow back. By 1940 the forests were growing back in a big way, and people were using petroleum and coal and almost no wood at all. Most of the forest in eastern US today is new growth. The entire state of Vermont had been cleared by 1890, now Vermont is wall-to-wall forest.

[Oldtech]

On 3/9/2022 at 1:12 AM, NZ Buick said:

This is a job I’m not looking forward to with my 1919 tourer restoration! I have practically nothing left to work with in terms of wood work just a whole pile of floppy sheet metal

What tourer do you have? 35 or 45? McLaughlin?

[Hubert_25-25]

Rod,

Laminating is a method to prevent warping.  I was very surprised to see that the sills on my 1925 Buick were not only laminated, but tongue and grooved before gluing.  Everyone that I know of that has replaced sills does not laminate them due to the effort involved.  This laminating does prevent some risk from warping at a later date.  The back section of the sill (over the rear axle) was screwed and glued to the main sill wood.  The bottom photo shows how each sill is made from 3 pieces of wood.  I used a clear epoxy penetrating sealer so you can still easily see how this was constructed.    Hugh

 

[NZ Buick]

On 3/11/2022 at 4:19 PM, Oldtech said:

What tourer do you have? 35 or 45? McLaughlin?

I have an E/H45 Tourer

[Rod Wise]

NZ Buick,  You need to tack weld the body (allowing for correct gaps at doors etc) together,  sitting on a sheet of  2.4m x 1.2m ply.   Use braces across the top to keep in the correct shape.  Get body width measurements from an other car.  Then draw the shape on the ply,  This gives the main body rails.  Mark all the positions of the vertical posts on the ply.  While the body is in the correct shape make lots of ply templates  and note the angle the timber pieces are to the horizontal.  This is a big project and can take many years.   Good luck.

Here,s a 1918 I was building a new wood frame for in the 80,s

Edited March 13, 2022 by Rod Wise (see edit history)

[NZ Buick]

3 hours ago, Rod Wise said:

NZ Buick,  You need to tack weld the body (allowing for correct gaps at doors etc) together,  sitting on a sheet of  2.4m x 1.2m ply.   Use braces across the top to keep in the correct shape.  Get body width measurements from an other car.  Then draw the shape on the ply,  This gives the main body rails.  Mark all the positions of the vertical posts on the ply.  While the body is in the correct shape make lots of ply templates  and note the angle the timber pieces are to the horizontal.  This is a big project and can take many years.   Good luck.

Here,s a 1918 I was building a new wood frame for in the 80,s

That’s great advise Thankyou Rod. I’m not too concerned about the time it will take as I’m already a few years into this project and am yet to even have a chassis with wheels attached that can be rolled around! It is a gigantic puzzle to me that I’m thoroughly enjoying working my way through with the hope one day I may have a nice old car to drive around.