Willys36

The problem with positive molds is that the surface must be absolutely perfect to achieve the required optical quality. A 'blown' bubble achieves the necessary perfect optics automatically. The cold air impingement could be problematic but as I mention in the Instructable, the bed of the tool is covered with felt which serves to stop the jet effect and spread out the air so it uniformly fills the bubble with no differential cooling.

I am absolutely sure the glue would have done a number on the plastic if it got onto a visible spot. I took precautions; first placed the rubber exactly where it was to be on the top then outlined it with blue painters tape on both edges; used the heavy-bodied glue so it wouldn't run; ran a thin bead of glue down the exact center of the 1 1/8" wide rubber section so the glue would squish to the edge but no further. I had to end up making 3 tops before I got my final one so had lots of practice! The glue was never a problem.

OOPS! Just re-read your comment and see that you did actually blow your bubble, just had a 2-part wood profile pattern. There are guys in the hot rodding community who do it that way but I have only had this experience with the commercial press guys. I still like using the press since the clamping method takes considerably more time from the oven to the air compressor and you only have in the range of a minute or two before the plastic cools too much to blow. You want to blow the bubble with the plastic as hot as possible so there aren't extra internal stresses introduced by stretching cool plastic that wants to be set. You obviously had a system where you got your bubble blown quickly avoiding the induced stresses. The last one I had blown with the press method was not as good as...

OOPS! Just re-read your comment and see that you did actually blow your bubble, just had a 2-part wood profile pattern. There are guys in the hot rodding community who do it that way but I have only had this experience with the commercial press guys. I still like using the press since the clamping method takes considerably more time from the oven to the air compressor and you only have in the range of a minute or two before the plastic cools too much to blow. You want to blow the bubble with the plastic as hot as possible so there aren't extra internal stresses introduced by stretching cool plastic that wants to be set. You obviously had a system where you got your bubble blown quickly avoiding the induced stresses. The last one I had blown with the press method was not as good as the first two. The guys doing the work were obviously new to the job and took forever blowing the bubble. I was watching and could tell near the end that the plastic was beginning to set while stretching. Sure enough, when I was assembling it into my fiberglass car body, everywhere the fiberglass resin touched the plastic it immediately crazed.

I ended up having 3 made. The first two were $446 each. The third one was done several months later and they charged over $700 for it. I should have negotiated better on that one!

That is definitely a got t make a top but requires a very accurate male and female mold for an optically pure result. My tops didn't have a mold the shape of the final bubble. All it had was the profile hole of the base of the bubble in a flat sheet of plywood. It needed the press to hold that plane onto the hot plastic then air pressure is blown under the plastic which literally blows a bubble.

I built a 2x4 steel tubing frame. The chrome side rails are just bolt-on decorations, no structural contribution.

Yes, it was a sad thing. And of course the engines were 390s, not 406s, that was just Roth hype. He soon hollowed out the internals in the engines and trannys to make it lighter but to no avail. And I believe from my studies that it was the little spring perches that kept breaking not the frame rails themselves, although they were poorly braced and probably contributed to over stressing the perches.

Thanx. Yes every gearhead kid has that one car that hit him square in the psyche and ruined him from ever having a normal life again!

should be there. That's why I posted it!!

I wrote a routine to generate these templates for my TI 59 programmable calculator probably 30 years ago. Really dating myself!!!!

Yep. In fact I still have my 59 and the printer! It quit reading the mag strips. I was a real power user, wrote a lot of engineering programs for it, published a few technical articles featuring the programs. Then PCs came out and zoomed past me leaving me in the technical dust.

Nope. Too late, too old!!!!!!!!

I was excited to read your Instructable and was getting into it until I saw that you had to be 8 yrs. old to understand this stuff. Bummer. I am 69 so there is no hope I can comprehend what you are saying.

Mine was a 15 pounder so that isn't the fix!! I think I will try the corned beef next time.

I worried about that, but hasn't been a problem over the 10 or so years it has been there. For one, the shrinkage cracks were already there in my slab. Second, by mixing the cement patch really watery it is fairly weak. Finally the urethane sticks to the cement so well, even if the slabs expand, it doesn't let go. If that is a fear you can seal the cracks only with vinyl caulking but the amount of relatively expensive urethane used will be tripled. As shown in the drawing, the V-shape of the groove in my slab would not hold a backer rope

I am a brisket junkie. LOVE the stuff. One of my favorite shows on TV is BBQ Pitmasters. However I am not a fan of brisket point burnt ends. WAY too much fat. I smoked a whole brisket a couple months ago (my first admittedly) and the flat came out fantastic. I made the point into burnt end chunks similar to the recipe in this instructable but they were so fatty they were inedible. I think I will only buy flats from now on and make part of those into burnt ends. Or maybe buy whole briskets, smoke the flat, and make the point into corned beef!?!

OOPS! sorry I missed this post, it's been 7 months. The body build went pretty smoothly. I have played with fiberglass for many years so knew the basics pretty well. In fact my prior largest project was to build a 'glas mold and 'glas 1-piece front end for my '36Willys coupe 'gasser'. I had a little trouble with wrinkling gel coat in a couple places, getting too anxious to lay up but not bad. All the parts of the molds and the car were done in one try so I consider that a success. the only flaw that showed up (AFTER the car was painted of course) was a void just under the gel coat on the front side of the body. For some reason I allowed an air bubble to stay in place under the first layer of mat. The whole body building process is discussed in detail in my book about the car.

Yes, the mind constantly runs wild with possibilities. Wife keeps me hustling with new projects so can't give each the TLC that you describe.

Thanx!

I have a local bolt supply house. Can get just about any fastener known to man there!!

It is the weld that convinces the folks it cant unscrew though.

Unfortunately the trick really needs the weld showing to convince the contestant that the nut won't unscrew.

Actually as mentioned above, the guys with the most knowledge will likely 'know' the nut can't be unscrewed. Also not he specifies a left handed bolt which most folks will instinctively try to unscrew it right handed which tightens the left handed one. I am going to try it.

I am humbled.

I got tired of the constant searching and bought a keyless chuck!

This one?!

Thanx Sue. I did win honorable mention. Will have another T-shirt for the gym!!

Very kind words. It did take some time but I never look at that aspect of my projects. I so much love being out in my shop making stuff, I really don't care how long the projects take.

Yes, in fact I have built a couple of those. One was a tunnel ram manifold I built for my hemi when in college in the 60s. In the 90s I built a 360degree one for the hemi. I wanted to make this one look factory so went the extra mile.

No we did not do any dyno work on the manifold. We did have seat-of-the-pants verification that told us it worked. Multiple carbs gets into the performance aspect with the attendant difficulties tuning those things. Our goal was a reliable, easy to maintain performance improvement which is what we got. I have a history with this technology including designing and building an exhaust and intake manifold for a single cylinder engine in the mechanical engineering lab at Fresno State for my Senior Project in earning my BSME degree. Did all the dynamometer work and even built a pressure monitoring device that recorded port pressures every 15degrees of crank rotation to confirm the power curve is a function of port pressure. That was 45 years ago but as I recall I got a 15% improvement...

No we did not do any dyno work on the manifold. We did have seat-of-the-pants verification that told us it worked. Multiple carbs gets into the performance aspect with the attendant difficulties tuning those things. Our goal was a reliable, easy to maintain performance improvement which is what we got. I have a history with this technology including designing and building an exhaust and intake manifold for a single cylinder engine in the mechanical engineering lab at Fresno State for my Senior Project in earning my BSME degree. Did all the dynamometer work and even built a pressure monitoring device that recorded port pressures every 15degrees of crank rotation to confirm the power curve is a function of port pressure. That was 45 years ago but as I recall I got a 15% improvement in power at the design RPM and an improved torque curve over the entire range. This stuff really works!!

That TV is what Ed used in 1962. Found it on Ebay. It is a true 7" portable but has NO solid state components. That was 1962 before printed circuits, before transistors, even before 8-tracks. The TV is totally vacuum tubes and hand wiring. It is a piece of art itself; no snap together plastic here, the entire chassis and even the name tags are assembled with miniature machine screws, lock washers, flat washers and nuts.

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Good catch. Been a while since I spec'd out any electrical work. Forgot the difference!

I had no idea what TV he used so I found a blog (there is a b log on the internet for EVERYTHING!!) and sure enuf someone recognized this one. Delmonico was a Japanese import that he said flooded the US market with cheap imports. Remember when made in Japan meant total junk. Actually this TV shows up on Ebay fairly often, just needed to know that was what I was looking for. The REALLY rare piece on the car that is my biggest treasure is the dash. It is an aftermarket 60s piece that is rarer than rare. I stumbled on it, didn't even know I was looking for it. Have never seen one before or after anywhere.

I have used urethane foam for other things but this is a classic woodcarving. I wanted it totally out of wood so a foam core would be really hard to put in it. In fact, the 'air core' I used with the plywood box is pretty much what a foam core would have been.

Couldn't have said it better!! 'Hot Rodder' was a much more pejorative term in the 50s than 'Gang Member' or 'Terrorist'. Hot rods by definition are rebellious, not following the rules.

It is a misnomer to call the Mysterion a car. It is fine sculpture in automotive motif.

Yes fiberglass composite is awesome stuff. Strong and hard but very flexible so it needs extra support for something like this seat or a car body. I love working with it too.

Lime gold candy over white pearl just like Ed had Watson paint the original. That Lime gold candy is weird stuff; paint it over a silver base and it comes out bright lime green. However paint it over a white base and it comes out that lemon yellow.

This may be a concern but it is quite a stretch form the intent of the instructable showing construction of a decorative wheel for a strictly show car to making wheels for the Wagon Queen Family Truckster! This car will hopefully drive a short distance and be filmed doing so but it will be at idle speed and a very short distance. It will never conceivably be a street driven car for a myriad of reasons. That being said, I would have no qualms putting a similar wheel on a hot rod that is street driven. This of course assumes the builder has good welding skills but the finished wheel is rock solid, true and balance. I see no danger in it.Disclaimer for EPA/OSHA/CALOSHA/NTSA/NAFTA/SSI/APCD/TSA/DOE/NASA, and any other governmental agency that might throw me in jail; I deny ever saying t...

This may be a concern but it is quite a stretch form the intent of the instructable showing construction of a decorative wheel for a strictly show car to making wheels for the Wagon Queen Family Truckster! This car will hopefully drive a short distance and be filmed doing so but it will be at idle speed and a very short distance. It will never conceivably be a street driven car for a myriad of reasons. That being said, I would have no qualms putting a similar wheel on a hot rod that is street driven. This of course assumes the builder has good welding skills but the finished wheel is rock solid, true and balance. I see no danger in it.Disclaimer for EPA/OSHA/CALOSHA/NTSA/NAFTA/SSI/APCD/TSA/DOE/NASA, and any other governmental agency that might throw me in jail; I deny ever saying the things in this post!!!!!!!

Thanx Cboy. Means a lot coming from Mr. fabrication. Building a T truck from scratch is quite an accomplishment too!

They were bought to cut so no problem!

This method was pretty much fool-proof. Can't see how it could go wrong! Pretty much made themselves once I figured out the necessary jigs.

I wrote a book all about it. It's available on Amazon.

Balance has to be good. Everything is uniform and concentric. I am not worried about that on this car though. If I ever do drive it, it will be @ idle speed around a show parking lot. There is NO room for feet so couldn't sit in it very long and it is really impractical to drive. Strictly a show car.

Oh, and as you can see they needed the space under the bottom shelves for the hoods of their cars so I hung the legs instead of standing them on the floor.

Thanx!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, could have added a lot of random hairs. When you study the face of these cats they are really hair challenged!! Just figured whiskers are best know hairs. Focus is intended on the snarl, huge canines, and stainless steel claws.

Thanx! it is one of several bucket list projects I just had to do. I finally realized my mortality; have more projects lined up than life left. And NOOOOO jaws on the floor. Very unsanitary.

No problem. He is a non-gearhead tot he max. It never crossed his mind to salvage the motor and he had no use for it anyway!

No problem. He is a non-gearhead to the max. Never crossed his mind to salvage the motor and he had no use for it anyway!

Yep. a steel cover and a connection to my shop vacuum system.