Yeah, those are amazing pics. I guarantee you will treasure those.
Trucks coming along nice also. Its a crazy amount of work and I only work on small cars. You truck guys are way too ambitious!
It is going to be strange seeing it all in one color when you shoot primer. Michael and ASA both did great work on their paint prep, crib heavily from their paint threads.
Fortunate father, and fortunate daughter. That's really great. I love her smile in the pics.
So, has she started looking for a project car for you two to get done for her 16th birthday yet? Looks like you've got a helper for life there.
Those pictures are fantastic!
The hood needs lots of attention still, but letters or not? I'll need to weld those holes up now if I'm losing them.
keep
Agreed
Alright. As I said I need a lot more work on the flat part of the hood, but it's certainmly the look I wanted.
I may, at a later date, remove basically all chrome from this thing. I can see those letters being part of that.
I vote no letters, because if you change your mind and want them, you just have to drill holes.
If you go letters and later change your mind, you'll have to repaint the hood.
I was going to vote keep the letters because I like the look. But skinnyg has a point; removing them now is relatively easy, removing them later much less so. If there's a chance you'll really want to remove them then go ahead and do it. I still think they look good there so if it was mine I'd keep them.
Why not fill the holes, and then attach the letters with trim tape? That way if you don't dig them later, its simple to go back.
Getting complicated in here!
I was leaning towards getting rid of them before I extended the hood. Now it seems to look better with them there. Team weld is right, that they could be added later, though it's an oversimplification to drill the holes, as they are all catywamput as the pins are mounted on the letters, so it would be nontrivial to drill them in the same places. Trim tape is a neat idea, but since they have such small surface area it might be tough to get them to stick properly. Especially the "M" since it goes over the ridge in the hood.
Well, I really like them, so take this with a grain of salt. But what about trying leaving them, if you don't like them in chrome, painting them either to match the truck or a slightly contrasting color? I think once it's painted they'll really look good, helping break up the large body area of the front of the hood.
dculberson said:Well, I really like them, so take this with a grain of salt. But what about trying leaving them, if you don't like them in chrome, painting them either to match the truck or a slightly contrasting color? I think once it's painted they'll really look good, helping break up the large body area of the front of the hood.
I think the bumper and grill are going to end up white to match the roof, and likely a small stripe at waist level like this:
That said, I could easily be persuaded to make the mirror and any other chrome doodads a copper or similar sheen. I could match that with the letters.
Especially with these wheels, or typical salt flat wheels painted like this:
The fender badges on my '77 are held on with seam sealer.....
Tunawife and tunakid 4 both agree that the letters must stay.
I hopefully have a date with 1&4 to sand tomorrow evening.
Well the hood is not going well, I did have a really enjoyable time with the kids, and they were genuinely quite helpful. I did have a tiny bit of jealousy with tunakid 4 because she's used to having daddy to herself in the garage, and there wasn't much for her to do because of the disaster. I realized that I had a raised seam, which I reasonably assumed to be where I welded the extra piece to the edge of the hood. I decided to take off the filler in that area and knock it back with a body hammer, but then this happened.
It turns out that the general motors material above the scene had gotten very thin from the sanding. The actual weld is still completely intact and is about 1/8 of an inch below this. I thought about it for a while, and considered cutting out a section and welding it all back in, but then I decided to simply teach the kid to weld air.
He did this for about 30 minutes and filled almost all of the holes. I had to fill one more after he went inside but overall he's really getting pretty good at it. I don't know how many other 13-year-olds can just weld while I work on another project (the bracket for the radiator grill) or how many 9-year-olds can sand on the body unattended, but mine totally can and it was super fun.
I'm going to buy a shrinking disk to help out with a little bit of the hood as Pete recommended years ago, and I think we can pull this back together.
Despite what u read or hear on all the welding sites, welding air ( Mig Knitting) and dirt and rust, are invaluable skills to have when you have to make something work.
Where do you plan on needing the disc?
Shrinking discs are black magic and voodoo. I love them.
NOHOME said:Despite what u read or hear on all the welding sites, welding air ( Mig Knitting) and dirt and rust, are invaluable skills to have when you have to make something work.
Where do you plan on needing the disc?
The face of the hood has some high spots and low spots.
Much like life (grin).
Just me making some grill brackets while everybody watches a movie
I got some time finally, I started to learn how to use this shrinking disc, then kids started screaming. All told I probably had 3 minutes.
Had to break out the unofficial improv stud welder.
I have a cheap grinder dedicated to my shrinking disc.
I recommend removing the guard, and grinding the center thread and nut down so you can just "float" the disc on the surface and they don't touch the metal. Less muscle; just let the tool do the work.
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