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  #91  
Old 03-19-2015, 02:42 PM
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heinke heinke is offline
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Originally Posted by racer-john View Post
Nice work Joel. Thanks for posting.
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Originally Posted by Oldnek View Post
Nice progress Joel. Your Dash and Gauges turned out beautiful.
John and John: Thanks for the compliments!
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  #92  
Old 03-19-2015, 03:04 PM
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Default Prototype planish motor and dies

I received the prototype planish motor and dies from Kent. I gave them a try on a weld seam that runs vertically down the front of the fender liner.

Before:


After:


The irregularities in the weld seam and file markings smoothed right out

I’m quite impressed with the results. In a few minutes of easy work, the weld seam disappeared into the panel. The only evidence it is there is the slight difference in filler metal color. I hadn't really anticipated that my power hammer would double as a planish hammer, but given Kent’s ingenuity with motors and dies, I just might get a two for one
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  #93  
Old 03-26-2015, 02:46 PM
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Default New tool –“Extra Hands” Stand

Given the size and bulkiness of these fender liners, I decided it would be time well spent to build a tool to help hold them during construction. Prior, I had them flopping around on my workbench and then when they got too big for that was wrestling them around on the floor during tacking, welding, trimming, and filing.

I copied Lazze’s ingenious design for a metal shaping stand and built it from metal scraps laying around the shop. I don’t know what to call it so for now I’m referring to it as my, “Extra Hands Stand”.



The only things I had to buy were 16 loose 1” ball bearings (eBay) and the 4 HF flexible pad vice grips. At first, I tried TIG welding the ball bearings to the ½” DOM tubing but found silver solder/brazing them worked much better and was faster as well.

I plan to take and post more “progress pictures” on the next fender liner. As part of that, you’ll get an idea for how well this Extra Hands Stand works out. I anticipate it’s a bit tall right now, but figured it’s much easier to cut the post off than to weld more on
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  #94  
Old 03-27-2015, 04:09 AM
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I'm sure that stand will come very in handy.
Might be worth making it height adjustable too.
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  #95  
Old 03-31-2015, 03:32 PM
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Default Fender/wheel liners continued…progress pics on new liner

I decided to redo the passenger side front fender liner from scratch because my first one had welding issues. It was the first thing in 3003 .040 that I’d shaped and welded. So it had quite a few pieces with some having marginal welds. I’m keeping a camera handy so I can take more progress pictures than I have in past.

Cut sheet for front side. Black marked square is a witness mark for buck.




Piece shaped out, mostly shrink done on Air Power Hammer (APH).




Backside showing fit to buck.




Piece 2 put into arrangement over my knee prior to shaping.




This should give perspective on how much shape is needed in this piece, half on top, half on the bottom.




Piece shaped and positioned to scribe the cut line.




Now the interesting part, I get to use my new “Extra Hands Stand” (EHS) for the first time. The pieces are clamped in position for tack welding.




Series of tacks across the seam. I need to clean up my act on flux application as I wasted a bunch here.




Seam welded all the way across.




My first impression on the EHS is that it makes tacking large shaped pieces like these dramatically easier. I was able to quickly manipulate and re-align the pieces such that I didn’t keep losing the heat in them. I was able to do the manipulation with bare hands (without getting burned) where in the past when tacking on the workbench I had to wear TIG gloves. I’d guess it took about a quarter to third the time to tack these pieces together on the EHS because I didn’t have to keep re-heating them to get the tack to melting point.

While the tacking was a dramatic improvement, the actual welding could have gone better. The weld seam area sagged a bit during welding. I’m guessing the EHS was holding the pieces tight enough to put stress on the joint. .040 aluminum gets soft enough during welding the joint sagged into a small valley from this stress. It’s nothing that can’t be shaped out but there’s definitely room for improvement. For the next weld, I plan to clamp the piece with two of the vice grips and then support the other side from underneath with the other two vice grips. That way there shouldn't be any external stress added.

Like I thought, the EHS is a bit too tall. While I could still see the weld area on the top, I had to stand tall to do it. So maybe about 4 inches shorter would be good. I agree with Marcus’s earlier comment, making the EHS height adjustable is desirable.

More to come…
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  #96  
Old 03-31-2015, 08:54 PM
Barry Barry is offline
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EHS looks great Joel! I'd agree on height adjustment, and you might want to make a couple of different length DOM, ball-ended arms and you should have something which could hold any panel...
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  #97  
Old 04-02-2015, 03:25 PM
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EHS looks great Joel! I'd agree on height adjustment, and you might want to make a couple of different length DOM, ball-ended arms and you should have something which could hold any panel...
Yes, EHS will be much more useful with height adust...I'm starting the search through my scrap metal for material that can fit inside the vertical square tube to fabricate the height adjust.

I originally bought a lot of 20 ball bearings so I still have 4 left over for extra long arms
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  #98  
Old 04-02-2015, 03:29 PM
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Default Fender/wheel liners continued… progress pics on new liner

I got an hour of garage time last night and was able to dress and planish the weld seam done in the prior post. I used a plastic hollowing hammer and handheld dolly to take the worst warp age out of the weld seam. I used the TM Tech APH hard metal shrink dies for the next level of taking warp/mis-alignment out of the weld seam. I then used an angle grinder and vixen files to take the proud off the weld on the top side. I used a die grinder and a pair of 3” cut-off wheels to remove proud from bottom side.

As a side note, I’ve found a 4.5” hard/rigid grinding disk that does a great job on aluminum without loading up. Speak up if you’d like to know the manufacture and part number. I’ve been mowing off 1100 filler material with it and not hardly a speck sticks in the disk.

Dressed weld seams prior to planish:






TM Tech prototype planish motor and “wobbly dies”. Yep, top and bottom dies have a socket that enables them to self-align to the surface being planished. There’s no edge marking with these dies unless the operator really messes up.






Post planish weld seams:






I used the EHS to hold the piece while filing the weld seam. This worked well although I had to tighten the joints so they wouldn’t move when the file started to remove material. I took the PVC covers off the vice grip pads prior to the weld operation and didn’t put them back on here. The pads marked the metal during filing. So lesson learned, keep the covers on if you don’t want scratches/marks on the metal.

I’m satisfied with the completed join operation on these two pieces except for one thing. During the planish a weld flaw became obvious. There was a ¼” fissure where metal fusion wasn’t complete. It probably would be fine to leave it but I’ll go back and fix it when I weld the next piece on.
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  #99  
Old 04-02-2015, 08:27 PM
Oldnek Oldnek is offline
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Can't complain about that Joel, by the look of the images came up real nice.
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  #100  
Old 06-24-2015, 11:15 PM
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Default Fender/wheel liners continued… new liner completed

In free time here and there, I keep chipping away at the front passenger side fender liner. It looks like I’ll be able to make it out of 4 pieces which is an improvement over the prior one that I did in 6 pieces.

A paper pattern for the last/back piece.



Sheet cut and bent over knee to get basic arrangement.



After shaping on APH the piece is ready for scribe and cut.



Pieces are O/A gas welded together and scrubbed clean of flux.



Weld metal finished and planished.



In preparation for flanging, the front edge is marked.



Except for the front edge, I have no confidence that I can accurately mark the edge for flanging around the wheel opening. So I cut the liner to the opening and am attaching a 1” wide flange with aluminum braze. After some trial and error, I found it worked best to tack the flange in place using a TIG. After tacking I then used an O/A torch to braze the flange in place.

Tacks TIG’d about every ¾ inch.



Flange on bottom front made with APH flanging dies and brazed in place along the side.



Flange is run around complete wheel opening. The liner is transformed from floppy .040 metal shape to a solid arrangement once flange is in place.



The back of the liner bends around a chassis tube where it will be attached and then extends back to the front of the foot box.





The liner fitting snuggly in place. The last step will be to fit up “U” clamps to attach it to the chassis tubes.
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