My cruiser to the 2008 Nostalgia Nationals in Bowling Green, KY... :)

[BamaNomad]

I was sorting thru old car show photos and car photos and came across some 10 yrs old that I'd forgotten about. I thought some of you 'metal working' gurus might appreciate this one, even though not a Chevy! Not mine, but belonged to father/son friends of mine; we had a blast driving that thing to/from and through the nationals that year! People were doing double takes at the 'straight up' Mercury Man as we cruised slowly thru the grounds (opposite of 'spinning wheels, as the mercury man didn't rotate with the wheel).. :)
The car was so low that when we backed up onto the grass, the tail pipes dug two furrows in the grass.. :)

PS. The metal work was done by a famous Mercury 'chopper' near me in Ardmore TN... NO bondo used where he chopped the roof; all welding by acetylene torch... and obviously the car wasn't painted after; paint is the same as when it was found out in the Dakotas with 'fifties' paint on it. After his chopping, the owners wanted to retain the patina, so he 'dusted the welds with white paint from a spray can! He had chopped over 50 Mercurys at that time more than 10 yrs ago...

[carls 56 (RIP 11/24/2021)]

cool ride, does look like you could have fun in that one. thanks for sharing.

[BamaNomad]

It's fun... although my head hit the roof in the backseat (even slouched down) with every bump! :) It 'appears' as an old Mercury which was chopped in the fifties and allowed to degrade, but actually it's a 51 Mercury that was probably driven in the early fifties, maybe til the sixties, and then parked in a yard, where my friends bought it in the early 2000's, then drug it to TN to have Jimmy chop it. Jimmy also made some rust repairs in the rockers and installed a frame front clip from a late sixties Nova with disk brakes, and installed a '70's 350 with 700R trans. You wouldn't believe it by looking at it, but it gets over 20 mpg on the highway, runs the quarter in less than 17 sec...

It's a cool Cruiser owned by my car nut friends (father and son team) who between them own nearly 10 Corvettes, including a '63 FI car that the father bought new, along with a '54, '64, '65, '72 LT1 convertibles, 84 Z51, '90 ZR1, and 2001 Z06. They take the Merc to a few 'hot rod' shows in the Indiana region.

To make this 'trifive' oriented, here's a couple of photos of Chevys and a safari that got my attention at that show, along with another photo of the Merc..

[Jerseyboy]

reminds me of the days ( many years ago) when I watched the experts use the paddle and led ....and those year mercs were real popular Led Sleds thanks for posting

[MP&C]

Nice Mercury! Thanks for sharing the pics!

[Rick_L]

There's a handful of chopped Mercs and Fords in the central TX area.

I had the opportunity to go to a top chopping class presented by Gene Winfield a few years ago. Gene and the class chopped the top on a 41 Chevy over a weekend. Hands on, everyone contributed. All cutting, welding, sheet metal and some leading done in about 18 hours. The guy who arranged for Gene to be there has a chopped 51 Merc.

[BamaNomad]

If I recall Jimmy's story accurately, he worked with Gene for several years as a young man and that is where he learned the craft... :)

[chevynut]

reminds me of the days ( many years ago) when I watched the experts use the paddle and led ....and those year mercs were real popular Led Sleds thanks for posting

Lead is still used in some shops for bodywork, when filler is needed. Steve's Auto Restoration in Portland uses lead a lot. I taught myself to use lead when I first did the bodywork on my Nomad in the late 70's and it's not really that hard to do....it's all about heat control.

[BamaNomad]

Lead is still used in some shops for bodywork, when filler is needed. Steve's Auto Restoration in Portland uses lead a lot. I taught myself to use lead when I first did the bodywork on my Nomad in the late 70's and it's not really that hard to do....it's all about heat control.

That's neat CN. Did it work well for you? ... when I was much younger, I thought about trying to learn/do that but never did. How hard was it to find a source for the lead and wood paddles? and did you use a crucible for melting the lead, or melt it right on the car?

[Rick_L]

There may be other sources but Eastwood has the materials and essential tools.

As for the crucible or melting it right on the car, I think melting it right on the car is the usual way, but I guess a crucible could be used too. But just thinking out load, if it was completely liquid, how would you keep it from running off a vertical or sloped surface? Doing it on the car means you can have a semi-solid that you can shape with a paddle.

The car we chopped in Gene's class didn't get finish leaded or body worked. He just did enough leading to show the process. The car could have been finished with body filler, the metal work was that close, even with a hurried job.

[chevynut]

That's neat CN. Did it work well for you? ... when I was much younger, I thought about trying to learn/do that but never did. How hard was it to find a source for the lead and wood paddles? and did you use a crucible for melting the lead, or melt it right on the car?

Yes leading works well but not many want to do it anymore. In the early 80's it wasn't hard to find the proper lead for bodywork in sticks about 12" long and I believe it was a 60/40 lead/tin alloy. This is almost completely opposite of eutectic lead/tin solder used in electronic manufacturing which has a ratio of 37/63 lead/tin. Later on when I couldn't find the solder locally I got eutectic solder bars, melted them down, and added lead to make new bars for bodywork. I made my own wooden paddle and kept it soaked in engine oil. I used a "tinning flux" that had flux and solder powder mixed together to "wet" the steel, applied with steel wool. All you did was put the steel wool into the powder, heat the panel, and scrub it with the tinning flux until it was covered. Then you heat the panel and the solder bar slightly, and keep the soft flame of an acetylene torch flicking across both the panel and the bar until the bar melts and sticks to the panel in chunks. The solder acts like a paste over a fairly wide range of temperature, but if you get it too hot it all ends up on the floor. The other hard part is judging how much to put on the panel, because it's fairly difficult to add more after you have filed the solder. So you want to put plenty on the first time. Once you apply the solder, you heat it and spread it like peanut butter using the paddle. It's not too hard with some practice.