My next project "La Petite Chanteuse"

3 minute(s) of a 82 minute read

Just so you know that I have not been sitting inside watching TV.

Bj.

9-30-2013

Hello Roger

Other people can but it is something I have never learnt. I have to design my bodies with a minimum number of joins and by observing what many smaller English coachbuilders did in the 1915 to 1925 period I have learnt to disguise where panels meet. You will have to wait a little longer. This is one reason why this little body has consumed two full sheets of aluminium and why I have three lengths of cresent mould waiting to be used. Go back to the photograph of the 1922 Aston Martin on Page 1 #1 and see how they solved the problem. I used the same technique on the 1926 Singer you see there.

Bj.

To anyone wondering about my reply above. A full sheet of aluminium is 8'0" long and this body is only 7'9' long so a complete side comes out of the one sheet. This is only possible provided that there are no compound curves. The top of the tail and the top of the cowl come out of the third sheet along with the bonnet (hood) top and sides out of the off-cuts. You just have to plan the whole thing before you start cutting. I use four different pair of snips. My antique (bought when I was just 17 or 18) pair of long Gilbrows for long straight(ish) cuts and a right hand and left hand pair of "Aviation" snips for rounded corners etc and a small pair of Gilbrows for tight corners. I also have two other pair of really antique, curved snips, one small the other large but I only rarely use them. For long "roughing out" cuts I use a cutting disk in my angle grinder. I use three hammers and two or three "dollies including an antique flat iron. plus a variety of clamps and vice grip pliers. Nothing under 25 years old so by AACA standards all my tools are "Antique". In addition to the angle grinder I have two electric drills and two orbital sanders, everything else is "hand powered". I also use my brains which are almost 77 years old and are so definitely "Antique". I take Monday mornings to play "Petanque" and Friday mornings to go shopping with Helen, (I am allowed to push the supermarket trolley) and some weekends for VSCC events. I do all my own repairs and servicing on the 1934 Lagonda Rapier. After some 8 to 9 hour days in the shed I feel about 200 years old. 

I could limit myself to just an hour or so perhaps one or possibly two days per week and sometimes do nothing for weeks on end but then nothing would ever be accomplished or finished. Sound familiar?

Bj.