Thread: Project $ 3 K Is Underway

Tweet

It is great to see your work Don. It made me feel the need to start getting the 52 out. Should be able to drive it soon. I need to find a radiator and it will be rolling again.

That's really cool Rick, glad to see you are so close to getting yours going. Show us some shots when you get a chance, would love to see them.


Brick, you know you have to get that first scratch on a new car to get it out of the way.


Got the drivers side wood all glassed in today and that was as much fun as I wanted to have. Besides, the shop was a disaster from all the cutting and sanding wood, so I spent some time and got it cleaned now that I shouldn't have too much more wood to cut and all.

I might make my self-imposed deadline of tomorrow night to have the wooding done yet.


Don

Don---In everything I have ever read about reinforcing fiberglass bodies with wood, It has said that if you fit the wood right up tight to the fiberglass, with no gap, it will create a "shadow" on the outside of the body when the body is finish painted with high gloss paint. Any time I have reinforced a body, as you are doing, I made sure to leave a 1/8" gap between the wood and the body, and glass in both sides of the wood to the body by using a 2" wide strip of mat, half onto the body and half onto the wood reinforcing on each side of the wood. I hope that what you are doing does not give this "shadow" effect that I have heard of. I will be interested to see how it turns out---Brian

Great question Brian, and one that I've wrestled with also. I have heard and read exactly the same things, and was careful to leave that gap when intalling the floor. The plywood is about that far away from the body. But for the stringers I had to put them up against the fiberglass outer shell as there was no way to stiffen the body or attach them without glassing them right to the shell.

I did put two to four layers of mat as a cushion between each stinger and the body, and wetted it out so it is bonding the wood to the glass. I did the same thing on my '27 and never got any shadowing. I went one step further on the '27 that I won't be doing on this one. I glassed an outer piece of 1/4 plywood to make an inner shell, and then poured in expandible foam between the two layers. The thinking was that it would make a rock solid body. I guess it worked, as the car never got any stress cracks, but in hindsight was overkill.

I think as long as I paint everything between the stringers with the black bed liner it should provide enough of a light screen that there should be no problems. At least I hope so.

Just don't know another way to do it, and even Total Performance, in their wooding kit, provide instructions how to bond pieces of wood to the interior of the body. (by the way, don't ever buy their wooding kit. I got one with the T bucket I bought a long time ago from some guy, and it is nothing but cheap, crooked firring strips. And they get big money for them.)

Yeah, I know this sort of contradicts that rule you and I have come to accept, but since most boat have wood glassed up tight against the hulls, and I have also done this on my '27, I think it will be ok.

Time will tell.

Don

Oh, BTW, I mentioned that I put expandible foam in the hollow sections of my '27 body. Funny story related to that.

If you have never seen this expandible foam, it is a two part epoxy that boat builders use to add floatation to their boats. You take a hollow cavity, mix up the two parts, and dump it into the cavity. As the name implys, it expands to like 3 times it's size and fills every little nook and cranny. I have always joked that you mix it up and RUN.

So, I took a little hole saw and punched a hole into the inner liner, dumped in some foam , replaced the wooden plug I had cut out, and glassed it back in place. Later on I told my Son about the great thing I had done, and he said, "you really better check, because that foam will expand and push your body out of shape."

I walked out into the garage, and the door area of the body was bowed out about an inch from the pressure of the foam expanding. This stuff was swelling my body outward. In a panic I took the holesaw and cut a few more holes, and all this pressure escaped, and the body luckily went back to it's original shape.

If he hadn't said that I would have had the fattest 1927 Ford in history.

Live and learn.

Don

Great story Don and good save too! I know about the first scratch deal, I am going to be a nervous wreck for a while.

I was looking in a new "Old Dawg catalog" and they have a 27 lakes body in there with 2 opening doors, now that would be alot of fancy reinforcing wouldn't it? Whats the next step for you Don, start laying in the interior?

Don & Brian,
I have also read about the problem of "shadowing" or "read-out" whenever you wood the inside of a fiberglass body, particularly when attaching the floor. I have never actually seen it, however, even though I have painted seven different fiberglass bodied hotrods (3 of which were T-buckets). Either they (the owners) had already overcome the problem or it showed up quite sometime later. The only one of those seven cars that I know the whereabouts of is one of the T's that is still in the hands of its original builder and still wears the Candy Brick Red lacquer that I sprayed on it in 1979. It still shows no sign of "shadowing". I'm not saying it doesn't happen; I'm just saying that it apparently doesn't aways happen. Now we just need to figure out why it does / doesn't sometimes and we can take the proper steps to avoid the problem. I'll be going through this same process soon and I'd like to know.

By the way, can somebody tell me how to post a picture in these threads? I can put pics in my gallery OK, but when I click on the "insert image" icon here, it asks for a URL...? Huh?

J Robinson---Type in a "quick reply", then click on the radio button immediately under the "quick reply" window that says "go advanced". This will open your reply in a new window, and if you scroll down a bit you will see a radio button titled "manage attachments". Click on it, and that will open a window on which one of the options is "browse".--click on "browse, migrate to where the picture is filed, and double click on it---wait a second, and the name of that file will appear at the bottom of the window---then click on "upload file".

Brick, Yeah, I have always resisted the temptation to put an opening door in my rods because of two things. First of all the extra work to get the jams and all right, and secondly, my buddy had a T bucket with a passenger side opening door. When you would hit a bump the gap would close up and pinch your arm that was resting on the door. I don't know if it was just improper bracing on his or what, but that made me decide that I and my lady would climb over the sides. (that's the acid test for me, if she climbs over and doesn't complain, she's a keeper )

As for my next step, today I got as far as finishing up the passenger side too, so all I have to do now is the backrest portion. I decided to let the glass get real cured so I left it for tonight. Then I can start on my tunnel. That is going to be a challenge, and I have some thinking to do on what I am going to do exactly there.

After that is done the body will get put aside and I will begin getting the frame ready for paint. (some final little welding tasks and sandblasting first)


Jim. I have to agree with you. As many fiberglass cars as I have seen, none have exhibited this problem, so maybe my concerns are unfounded. If worst comes to worst, I will just panel paint the car like they did in the '70's and lay some lace patterns all over it. Second thought, no I won't.


I will close out this post because I never know when this stupid computer will freeze up and I lose everything I have written, but I will log back on and tell you how to get pictures on here.

BTW, here are some shots of how I braced the stringers until they cured. Sometimes you do what you gotta do.


Don

Ok, Jim.......to post pictures, here is what I do.

First, after you have written whatever you want to say, like usual, go to the box at the bottom of that section that says "manage attachments." Left click on it.

Another screen will come up, left click on "brouse." Another screen will come up and you can pick the spot where you store your pictures. I keep mine in "my documents." Left click on whatever one you keep your pictures in.

Now select the picture you want by right clicking on it. You can also RIGHT click on it and hit preview to make sure that is the one you want to use. Once you have the picture you want, the name of it should show up in the "file name box on that screen. Left click on "open." You will return to the screen that says brouse on it, but left click on upload. That picture will now be on the thread you are posting on.

If that is the only picture you want, go to submit and your words and picture should be posted.

If you want to post up to 5 pictures, simply click on "brouse" after you upload a picture and go through all the steps again.

There may be easier ways to do it, but I am no computer genius, so I do what works for me. Hope this helps you out.


Don


Sorry Brian, you and I were typing at the same time. Didn't realize you were doing the picture download help thing too.

Don---When I built my glass 27T, I framed, cut, hinged and latched both doors---definately not for the faint of heart. They worked fine, and I never had problems with the dreaded "arm pinch from Hell". I had to do this, because even with a 6" channel, that car was high. I am descended from a long line of short fat people, and if I hadn't cut those doors, I would have had to mold in a ladder on both sides of the car. Even as it was, I had to step up onto the track bar ahead of each rear fender, slide my legs in thru the really narrow door, make sure and swing my fat butt in above the door opening, and then kind of "slither" my way down into the seat (which damn near sat on the floor).---Getting out of it required a "reverse slither" to go from the seated position into the upright position to get back out of the damn thing. It was really comfortable once I got setting down in it, but I had to develop a lot of contortionist moves to get in and out. ---Brian

You mean you didn't do the "Dukes of Hazzard" jump over the side? Evidently with good construction the doors can be made to work well, as you have described. It was just more work than I wanted to do, plus this car is lower than a snakes belly, so I can step right over the body to enter.

BTW, that was a pretty little '27 you built. I've seen pictures of it before, and always liked the way you did it.


Don

Don,

Did you glass the stringers directly to the body? Have you ever seen "shadows" form in the glass so that the ribs show from the outside? I've heard of that happening because of the different expansion rates between glass and wood.

Don

Glad I read your post about the expanding foam! I was actually considering doing that. Might have to rethink that.

And you're right about doors in buckets. The body I have came with a door opening. It's pretty floppy on that side. I'm going to add some wood and metal braces, although the company that makes these doesn't think it's needed. They rely on the boxing effect the interior section creates to stiffen the structure.

Mike

Originally Posted by Henry Rifle

Don,

Did you glass the stringers directly to the body? Have you ever seen "shadows" form in the glass so that the ribs show from the outside? I've heard of that happening because of the different expansion rates between glass and wood.

Yeah, we were just talking about that very subject. I don't think it will be a problem as I put a thick layer of mat under each one, plus I am going to use a very black bed truck liner liquid on the entire interior surface of the body, then seal it in with the upholstery board.

The only thing that I can see causing shadows would be the density of the wood vs the areas where there is no wood, so if I paint it all black, no light should be able to come through. I also am going to put bright halogen worklights on the inside of the body after I do that painting to see if any shadowing or lighted areas show up. If I have to do multiple coats of the truck bed liner, I will.

I did this same thing to my '27, and no shadows, and some others have mentioned they have never seen one do it, so hopefully I will be ok. If not, there is always flat black paint, and I will make it a rat truck.

Don