Thread: 55 Wagon Progress

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That looks great! I hope the weather works with you so you can get some primer and sealer on that beast!

Thanks! Well, no primer just yet, while Kyle was taking care of some pin holes that became more obvious after media blasting...











I ran across this...



























With so much widespread "issues", let's see if we can come close to duplicating this.. Taking a paper pattern..























Here laid out on some 19 gauge AKDQ...



















Trimming...







But I always prefer a test sample first... this done on the tipping wheel











Step dies on the Lennox add the final detail...







Need to fine tune the dimensions, but this looks close. I think I'll make up some dies for the Lennox for better consistency on the good piece..











Should be priming soon... once the dominos stop falling.

This is such a quality job and by that I mean to see the craftsmanship you put into this project keeps reminding me that there are true craftsmen out there...........great job!!

Nice work! I'm curious to see which tooling you use to put the round indentations/bulges in it.

Oh, that will be the easy part..


Time to make some dies for the Lennox, here fine tuning the fit..











The outside corners will get some steel added for a sharper detail in the bends..











The 19 ga steel is a good snug fit for the band saw cuts...

















The front edge of the panel will be tipped prior to running it through the Lennox, the tipped flange will act as a guide in the slot in the lower die..











Another test run using a straight piece of scrap

















Dimensions looking much better.











Enough practice, starting to tip the flange on the good piece.. The tipping wheel on the bead roller bends about 30 degrees and the remaining is done manually with the hand tipping tool..

















Flange tipped, some kick shrinking to get the right contour, and we're about ready for the Lennox.. As Kyle was off tonight we'll wait until he returns so we can have two people feeding this long piece through the machine..

As we found with some of the practice pieces, when you try to shove metal too much into a hole it tends to pull in from the edges.







So to fix that we'll make up a new bottom die to form the ramp fold fully, then change back to the above die to form the step..











The down side to using phenolic is that it gives a bit where it doesn't make sharp creases well or short reverse folds either. The initial practice pieces wouldn't fold the step down flat, so a wrap of steel was added to the top die to better persuade the step flat...











The upper die holder helps keep the wrapped steel in place.







That did the trick, step is laying down nice and flat..











The front flange hangs over just a bit too much, some hammer action will bring it back in place. Real pleased with how well this turned out..







Some of the practice scraps..

Robert, that is awesome! You do great work. I wish you were closer so I could come watch you do some of this.

Can't learn watching. I'd have to put you to work...






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Originally Posted by MP&C

Can't learn watching. I'd have to put you to work...






.

I'd have no problem with that at all! That'd be the best way to learn and not create bad habits.

Next task on the list is to add the semi-circular relief areas into the new cowl repair panel..



A suitable piece of Phenolic is cut out, notched at the bottom for "vise support", and used a roloc sander and drum sander to add the relief area in the "hammer form".



Here's the Vise support shown in action... should remain nice and stable through all the hammer action..



Centerline of the hammerform marked, as well as on the vise, to better align our new cowl..



Door skin hammer will be used here to provide the radius, this one was touched up as the factory radius was a bit too large.



Tried it on one of our scrap pieces first..



Back side..



Front side and comparison to the factory version

Originally Posted by 40FordDeluxe

Nice work! I'm curious to see which tooling you use to put the round indentations/bulges in it.

Action video showing the process:

super work video was very cool too!

Awesome! Thanks for the vid. You sure make it look easy. I'm going to have to join youtube and subscribe to you so I can start watching and get some good guidance when I get back to my 40.

That's 4X speed on Movie Maker, so realistically about 5 minutes per detail. Took as long to make the hammer form die as to hammer out those four details....

A bit further along on the cowl repair.. Repair patch trimmed to size...





....and then scribed to the cowl area, which gets rough cut using the 4-1/2" cut off wheel. About 1/4" excess is left for final trimming using the snips..








That should flow some air...





Tacked in place..

Thanks for the pics and sharing the knowledge. ( as always!)

I know if I was to attempt the repair.. it wouldn't look as nice as yours but at least the job isn't as scary after seeing your working through it.

So thanks for that education too.