1926 Chrysler Wood work question

[Armond61]

Thanks for letting me join.  We inherited my father in-laws 26 Chrysler roadster.  He did a lot on the car but did not make certain wood that is for the top attaching points and there apparently is a piece of wood behind the seat?  I found some pics of a car that shows the wood somewhat.  My question is there anyone who has some clear pictures of this wood.  I have found a guy in Salt Lake that does a lot of wood work for the locals.  Here are a few pictures.  Thanks for any help.

[alsancle]

I don't suppose you can find any of the original wood?  I'm sure he kept it somewhere.

[Armond61]

We have been cleaning up his place and no luck so far.  I am very surprised he had did not get these made.

[3macboys]

7 hours ago, Armond61 said:

We have been cleaning up his place and no luck so far.  I am very surprised he had did not get these made.

Try posting further down in the Chrysler section as well - the more exposure the better, someone is bound to have a car that can get you pictures and measurements

[1930 Kram66]

The original piece was likely made out of multiple sections using finger joints to allow the wood to "curve" around the body.

Another option if you can't locate the missing piece would be to use thin marine grade ply wood and laminate the pieces together to form the required shape. Photos from a 1930 Chrysler 66 I restored.

A competent woodworker could reproduce this part quite easily.

 

 

 

[chistech]

That section is called the belt rail and it she fairly easy to make when you have the car to measure from. That piece is connected to the two deck rails that make up the sides of the rumble seat opening. It also gets the parcel tray and supports all attached to it. I would not use plywood but pieces of ash shaped and jointed together around the curved sections. The below pictures are of two ‘32 Oldsmobile convertible coupes I reframed and the belt rail along. With the parcel tray would be very similar on your Chrysler.

[jp1gt]

I am having one made for my cad. the difficult thing is to have the bend around the back and on the side where the to iron goes. I have an original cad piece and where the side starts to go down they have a bunch of long "dovetails" so that part can be bent in any angle. By the way what kind of wood did they use. The cabinet maker that is doing the job says white oak is the best price to make this out of.

Edited March 12 by jp1gt (see edit history)

[chistech]

On 3/12/2024 at 12:00 PM, jp1gt said:

I am having one made for my cad. the difficult thing is to have the bend around the back and on the side where the to iron goes. I have an original cad piece and where the side starts to go down they have a bunch of long "dovetails" so that part can be bent in any angle. By the way what kind of wood did they use. The cabinet maker that is doing the job says white oak is the best price to make this out of.

Don’t use oak. It’s too porous and susceptible to humidity changes. Use high quality ash. Much easier on the tooling too. GM and other wood body manufacturers used long finger joints to aid in making the long radius in many of the parts. I created my own cutter for duplicating these joints and the post about it is here on the AACA. If you look up my posts you will find it and other posts with wood parts made using the cutter.

[demco32]

1 hour ago, chistech said:

Don’t use oak. It’s too porous and susceptible to humidity changes. Use high quality ash. Much easier on the tooling too. GM and other wood body manufacturers used long finger joints to aid in making the long radius in many of the parts. I created my own cutter for duplicating these joints and the post about it is here on the AACA. If you look up my posts you will find it and other posts with wood parts made using the cutter.

Ash wood was also used in Jaguar and many UK cars and even today in the Morgan cars.

you can also fold it into a mold with steam.

 

[jp1gt]

I spent some time looking and could not find the post. Can you give it to me again?

[chistech]