chistech Posted April 26 Share Posted April 26 I had speaking with a customer with a 31 caddy who mentioned he also had a 30 Nash. He wanted to send me the Caddy and told me the Nash was out in Ohio where the body wood was being replaced by a guy considered one of the best. The guy ended up finishing the wood work so the owner called ad said he wanted to send me the Nash first. We discussed that the car would be a driver restoration and the owner mentioned some specific issues the car had because of a previous owner’s decision to cut out the rear of the car but I told him I was willing to look at the car and attempt to get it back together. The car arrived this past weekend end and I got a better look at the car. While I knew of the metal work issues i was assured the wood was expertly replaced to the tune of thousands by “one of the best in the business “! After looking at the car i called the owner to discuss. Have a look at the pictures and post what you think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chistech Posted April 26 Author Share Posted April 26 More. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chistech Posted April 26 Author Share Posted April 26 Still more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chistech Posted April 26 Author Share Posted April 26 If you noticed the side roof rails are made up of pieces nailed with blocks in between the roof bows. Roof bows are all uneven heights. The side roof rail pieces aren’t even flush with the height of the metal in some places while others they’re too high. The rear roof upper rail is not under the nailing ovals in the sheet metal so there is no wood to nail the roof in. The outer edge of the drivers side roof rail is not wide enough to support the nail line for the roof edge and the installer hammered in the steel to fill the space left at the front of the roof header. What are your thoughts on this work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laughing Coyote Posted April 26 Share Posted April 26 How you going to break the bad news to him about the "quality" work he just had done? 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edinmass Posted April 26 Share Posted April 26 Absolutely nothing unusual about hack work……..and people paying thousands of dollars for it. Sadly, if the car were 90 points and running down the road, it would be a hard sell at 30k. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloo Posted April 26 Share Posted April 26 Wow. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chistech Posted April 26 Author Share Posted April 26 He is driving here from NY to discuss. I told him I would only work on the car after he had seen in person and we had agreed in writing how I would be proceeding. The rear wheel well wood was also done wrong. I believe only the floor with main sills I’ll be able to leave as is. What is pretty amazing to me is the owner supplied the body book and it shows a decent enough of pictures to recreate the wood at least in a usable way. While it might not be exact without the actual wood for patterns, the pictures would get you lose. The roof of this car is not close at all. The work is good enough for a Hollywood prop but that’s about it. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dibarlaw Posted April 27 Share Posted April 27 i was assured the wood was expertly replaced to the tune of thousands by “one of the best in the business “ Maybe he should have asked more about what that business was.... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kar3516 Posted April 27 Share Posted April 27 That guy failed shop class in the 7th and 8th grade; looks like he switched to business class where he learned to charge something for nothing 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramair Posted April 30 Share Posted April 30 On 4/25/2024 at 9:12 PM, chistech said: He is driving here from NY to discuss. I told him I would only work on the car after he had seen in person and we had agreed in writing how I would be proceeding. The rear wheel well wood was also done wrong. I believe only the floor with main sills I’ll be able to leave as is. What is pretty amazing to me is the owner supplied the body book and it shows a decent enough of pictures to recreate the wood at least in a usable way. While it might not be exact without the actual wood for patterns, the pictures would get you lose. The roof of this car is not close at all. The work is good enough for a Hollywood prop but that’s about it. Hopefully the owner is sharp enough to see how poorly the wood was done. You are approaching it the right way by having him there in person. So many people try to do all their business on the phone and we can see the results of that! Also it is hard to judge people’s reaction when they are not in front of you. Chistech, we have seen your woodworking skills and I am sure that if the Nash is left in your hands it will turn out as a piece of art! 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
31nash880 Posted April 30 Share Posted April 30 That is going to take alot of time and money. And it seems will have a low value when done. Parts are hard to come by and are expensive. One note here, if they decide to continue the project, the only place I found for interior handles was in Australia. Don't recall name of business but they are going out of business so order soon. Good luck. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kar3516 Posted May 1 Share Posted May 1 For contrast there is this car posted elsewhere on the forum ASKING price $60,000 Canadian ($43,800 USD). The Canadian car is a beautiful sedan and if $200,000 was spent on this car it wouldn’t be that nice… 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wayne sheldon Posted May 4 Share Posted May 4 About half of that "woodwork" looks like the pattern pieces I sometimes make out of scraps and junk wood to adjust sizing and fitting before making the permanent piece out of good wood (that is the way to do it when you do not have decent pattern pieces to begin with). The finish of the top wood isn't even that good! And I thought I did fast, cheap and dirty work? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom_in_nh Posted May 11 Share Posted May 11 On 4/25/2024 at 10:40 PM, chistech said: We discussed that the car would be a driver restoration Red flag to me. My opinion only, I would not like to see you waste your time with this project. You will not be happy to stamp your name on this potential project if the customer does not want to budget more money in order to correct the previous restorer's effort. There is a good chance that the previous restorer was budgeted for a "driver restoration ", and the result is what you see. I hope that I am wrong on this. I wish you luck with this. Tom 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alsancle Posted May 11 Share Posted May 11 With previous restoration work you never know the full story. Sometimes the shop is cutting corners because they don't know any better. Sometimes they are cutting corners because they have a gun to their heads. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edinmass Posted May 12 Share Posted May 12 I simply refuse to work on cars this xxxxed up. There is NO recovery possible. And once you touch it, you own it. Thirty years ago, a guy had a car painted at a shop near me…..they sold it as “restored” by………a big name shop. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Boehm Posted May 12 Share Posted May 12 I hope you are planning on posting an account of your meeting with the owner. I am reproducing / replacing the wood on a station wagon. Those pictures are painful to see. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chistech Posted May 12 Author Share Posted May 12 I convinced the owner to come pick the nash up. I told him I really didn’t want to touch the car. The owner has a 31 Cadillac that is in much better condition that needs painting and mechanical reassembly. He will be bringing that car to replace the nash as he doesn’t want to lose his place in my shop. I was originally supposed to do the Cadillac but he had the guy do the wood on the nash and he finished it quite quickly. Of course finishing it quickly is easy when doing the level of work that was done. I’ll keep you all posted when the Cadillac comes in. 6 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Boehm Posted May 12 Share Posted May 12 Did you get a sense of how this train wreck happened? "Woodworker" clueless? Owner clueless? "Woodworker" working to a price and clueless? "Woodworker" out to rip off owner? All of the above? I understand you may not want to express an opinion publicly because the owner is still a client. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chistech Posted May 13 Author Share Posted May 13 (edited) On 5/12/2024 at 8:34 AM, Tom Boehm said: Did you get a sense of how this train wreck happened? "Woodworker" clueless? Owner clueless? "Woodworker" working to a price and clueless? "Woodworker" out to rip off owner? All of the above? I understand you may not want to express an opinion publicly because the owner is still a client. You are right Tom, the owner is not very mechanical at all and only saw a few pictures of the woodwork. The car got picked up at the woodworkers and brought directly to me. The owner claimed he kept asking for better pictures but never got them. I believe he might have sent the car to this other guy because he might get less per hour than I do but I can only speculate on that. I’m not the cheapest nor am I the costliest but I do believe my work is on par with the best of them. What ever he had paid me my work would have been correct at least. As we know the most expensive isn’t always the best or the right fit and there are a few that are inexpensive and good, especially those who are fairly new to it out trying to make a name for themselves. But the majority of cheap and only sometimes, quick, are usually of poor quality. What the owner of this Nash paid was not cheap and in the ball park of what it would have cost if I had done the work. So in this case, he didn’t pay for cheap, but cheap is what he got. Edited May 13 by chistech (see edit history) 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Boehm Posted May 13 Share Posted May 13 Thanks for the update. I speculate that both the owner and the "woodworker" did not have an understanding of how the top covering is correctly installed. In other words, the top covering cannot be installed on top of the new woodwork. The metal on the roof of the car cannot be restored/painted over the new woodwork. He just created a problem for whoever was supposed to install the top fabric. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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