Time for a little update again.
First job, having got the fromt hammerform sorted, was to extend it downwards to form the front valance area. The actual stations were a doddle, as they're all the same basic shape, and are just stepped back in line with the nose's profile.
I did have to have a bit of a think as to how to attach it all together. In the end I made up a side-to-side station to tie the valance stations togther, and then took this side-to-side up to the main piece of ply on the hammerform. It occurred that I could do the same when it came to the 'bonnet's' first station as well. Trouble is they would be fighting over the same area, so it was a case of 'slot 'A' into slot 'B' ....
Front valance:
Ties into the hammerform's shape O.K. ....
Bonnet first side to side station (still to be profiled) together with valance side to side station ....
The next thing to sort was finishing the bonnet area stations. I had already cut the front-to-rears, using some plywood guides previously scribed in to the top surface of the wireform. I did have to think about how to set these at the correct height, which is a disadvantage of trying to do a lot of this buck off of the car.
Anyway, realised the best way to tackle this was to put a couple of scrap legs on an offcut, and then just measure up from the scuttle at the points where the front to rear stations would end up ... (ply guides in foreground, a centre, and then one each for the next two stations out) ....
This could then be trimmed .....
Using this, and with the front end dummied up, the front to rear stations could be aligned ....
At this point, I'd already cut the basic shape of the bonnet side-to-side stations, again derived from guides taken from the wireform. one thing came to light during this process. I just left all of the side-to-side stations high, with the idea of just resting some of our 3/16 round rod across all of the front to rears, and marking off the side-to-sides. It became clear that the rod didn't like the route the stations were asking of it, and it wanted to be higher in the middle. A tricky one this, but in the end it seemed prudent to cut the stations to the upper line (the route the rod preferred), rather than forcing it down in the middle.
I don't know, but looking at the rod, suspect that the line across the stations is a little off (i.e. the wireform is off), and for me to push the wire (and ultimately the aluminium) to this profile is going to look plain wrong.
In the end I took the centre route, and cut the stations to the higher line. I can then either plane these down later, or build up the front-to-rears with a skim of filler (it's only 3-4mm max, so filler would be more than adequate for this).
Cut to upper line ...
One thing I keep meaning to mention, and that's with all of these stations you need to keep thinking about which is the side which is tallest. because the MDF and ply are quite thick, as soon as they are on slope (like the wing or bonnet areas), you need to cut to the tallest dimension, and then later plane the thing down to the shorter one. In fact when the jig's bolted to the car, there will be quite a bit of final shaping, and no doubt a bit of filling, just to get everything to flow together nicely.
Station showing effect of slope ....
Time to throw it all together prior to fitting to car ...
We're now at the point where really this lot needs to be fitted, as the bigger the assembly gets, the harder it is to keep it all aligned. Also more and more time is spent trying to measure the car, reproduce that on a guide, move that to the jig part in question and then, finally, make the cut.
We've held back on cutting away most of the wire jig (all but the first side), as we're keen to wheel the thing outside for one final, final look around and picture session. After that we'll have to commit.
In actual fact, most of the wireform is an illusion anyway: none of the nearside was dimensioned at all, it was just thrown on quite roughly so we could get a very general feel for the shape. It's rather like having paper (and nothing else) covering some floor joists that you're stepping across: makes you feel much more secure, but basically it's all false. This is the same: it all looks very nice, but actually the nearside doesn't really
mean anything. The car will look very, very bare when most of the wire comes off, but in fact, we won't have any fewer 'real' references than we do now.
Anyway, enough of the car, now for a bit more on the real project (
![drunken :drunken:](./images/smilies/drunken_smilie.gif)
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My lovely lovely Hoosier anvils have arrived from the States, and very nice they are too. They were well packaged, very well in fact, but not in an easy-access way. They needed a box, a home, and indeed a presentation case. I thought it would be nice to have all of the wheeling stuff in one place, so WD40 (anti-rust when you leave the wheel), wet-n-dry (for polishing off any blemishes), and finally some nice soft dusters (for keeping the wheel, anvils and work clean during wheeling).
All for now, thanks for reading
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
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DDK Member1243 07741 273865. Now booking Spring '24. Home of the RY Austin 7 Trophy's