Hand hammered Louvers

[MP&C]

Had a slight distraction yesterday, a couple hood sides for a 37 Ford showed up. The owner wanted to remove the side "grille", and add a tapered recess pan with clamshell louvers. Here's what we started with...


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4192.jpg


Some cutoff wheel action later....


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4195.jpg


In an attempt to keep as much metal on the ends as possible, we opted to flatten the sad remains of the horizontal fins. This involved some shrinking via the heating tip in the dent puller..


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4199.jpg


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4200.jpg


Looks like someone has spilled bondo all over this panel. Funny the inside didn't look all that mangled to warrant the amount we found.. Must be a TV car..

The shrinking efforts flattened out the ends fairly well...


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4201.jpg


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4202.jpg


I filled in the previous trim holes with 18 Ga plugs and TIG fusion while the owner worked away at removing the bondo so we could see what we had to work with...


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4207.jpg


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4208.jpg


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4209.jpg


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4211.jpg


Next, we had to fold a flange in the front and extend the factory bead around the opening down the front where we had flattened the panel. Some of the existing bead profiles had seen better days in the past 80 plus years, so I checked a set of joggle dies I had made for drip rail as it looked close...


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4213.jpg


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4214.jpg


New flange folded at the front, bead added using the Lennox, original beads touched up …


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4219.jpg


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4223.jpg


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4222.jpg


Tapered pan fabricated.....


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4226.jpg


Louver layout


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4228.jpg


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4229.jpg


Welded in place..


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4230.jpg


He is having some art deco style trim pieces made to accent the louvers down the center, topped by 62 Impala fender trim. We didn't have those, so here it is with alternate SS fuel line for your viewing pleasure...


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4232.jpg


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4234.jpg


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4235.jpg

[bigblock]

Robert you are the MASTER. I always look forward to seeing your posts. Thanks for sharing.:)

[chevynut]

You did that in a day? :eek:

[BamaNomad]

I think he did it in a 'distracted portion' of his day.... Aren't you that fast/good??? :) J/K ... Only Robert is that good!

[MP&C]

I have about two hours to finish the louvers in the other side. It was getting late and he had to drive back to Baltimore.

[MP&C]

Well the owner sent me a "concept photo" complete with cardboard cutout... The piece of cardboard against the hood side will be chrome plated, the next will be a contrasting color to the car, and topped off with the Impala fender trim..




http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_E4239.jpg

[MP&C]

Hood side number two completed yesterday. The flanges of the tapered pan get some stretch treatment in the kick Erco to match the profile of the hood side..

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4283.jpg

For the questions about the cutting device, it is a long nose pneumatic cut off tool from Blue Point. For keeping the cut nice and perpendicular, and disc width, the long nose works better (for me anyhow) by having the long nose as a visual guide to keep it parallel to our centerline. I don't think I would have seen as good of results using the standard cut off tool.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4284.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4285.jpg

Each slot has stop drill holes at the end, to help remove any cracking issue and also to better determine end of cut.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4287.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4288.jpg

E helped out with the punching efforts...…

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4289.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4291.jpg

Panel gets tacked in and welded with the TIG...

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4292.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4293.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/rmccartney/1937%20Ford%20Hood%20Sides/IMG_4295.jpg

[Rick_L]

Are you saying you use the long shaft on the tool as a visual guide for parallelism?

[MP&C]

exactly