Thread: 55 Wagon Progress

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That's very cool! I had never really thought about forming long louvers, and had no idea that they were done with a set of small dies, moved side to side. Makes perfect sense, but I'd assumed that one had to have a pair of dies for the louver to press it in one action, which makes no sense now that I've seen the actual process. Thanks once again for posting the pictures in sufficient detail to learn from.

I'd only seen a picture of Von Dutch punching louvers, and I believe he used a large punch and die setup. Looks like the old analogy of skinning cats holds true yet again.

I like it! I like it! I like it!!!!

Rich

I was starting to worry what we all would do for a fix when Robert and Kyle complete this project. Then it occurred to me that they of course will start another thread with the next project. We can hope anyway. Keep up the good work Robert.
You have been an inspiration to us all.

Jack.

I was starting to worry what we all would do for a fix when Robert and Kyle complete this project. Then it occurred to me that they of course will start another thread with the next project. We can hope anyway. Keep up the good work Robert.
You have been an inspiration to us all.

Jack.

OOOPPS, sorry for the double post.

This will be the next drama.....





....and the thread is already started! haha


Barn vs. Divco

Thanks for the link Robert, I remember that post. Looks like it will now get revived.


Jack.

Great work! Haha, I've had the same looks from the car wash attendants. I really like your simple rotessirie set up for the frame as well. I really need to build one like that some day. That is really cool to see how the louvers are being done. Thanks for sharing it.

Well FedEx showed up today with a CL delivery, got a matched pair of 48" linear rails. The two bearing blocks will have a material clamp bolted to each block, and used on one rail. We'll get a chance to try it out on the second louver sample. Where we had been manually holding the workpiece against the back stop, this should work better with a simple glide back and forth once clamped in place..














While I was getting that squared away, Kyle was removing some scraps that were left on the frame from the original trans crossmember.








He also removed the spot welded guides from the louver panel. The good part about samples is we can see what works well and what doesn't. Here we can see that we won't use spot welds next time as it's too much clean up. I think we'll give some stainless rivets a shot on version 2...

The more I looked at our panel with the spot weld carnage, the more I disliked the result, so with new linear guides installed, we made all new today using stainless pop rivets to hold the guides in place. This will leave a few 1/8" holes to fill, but should be much less issue than cleaning up after the spot welds...


We needed just a bit more throat for this set of "lengthened" hood sides, so one bolt was removed from the material clamp and then rotated the clamp inward 90". This lets the panel pass through rather than bottom out in the clamp.





Guides riveted in place....











Here's the new version 1, much cleaner, less distortion, and we can re-use the guides...











The cowl piece was done without guides....





And version 2 with the cowl piece.....






Dave (the car owner) stopped by this afternoon and picked up the samples, and indicated he was being over-ruled by most parties on louvers in the cowl, so likely that version won't be used...

Dave (the car owner) stopped by this afternoon and picked up the samples, and indicated he was being over-ruled by most parties on louvers in the cowl, so likely that version won't be used...

Too bad. A lot of work and a great-looking result done for naught.

Thanks for sharing how to machine the louvers, great thread for that alone.

Originally Posted by stovens

Thanks for sharing how to machine the louvers, great thread for that alone.

Yes, what he said! As always, thanks for making time to share your knowledge/talent!

Thanks for the comments guys. It looks like we will be leaning toward something with longer louvers, as in the Sharpie marked version on the hood side, with no louvers leaving the hood area.



AND.........in the interest of showing the good with the bad, the lessons learned if you will, Safety tip of the day is to deburr your sheet metal even if it's only for practice pieces....

Looks like a nice gouge there! Is there a photo of the sharpie marker version that I missed. My internet has been off more than on lately!