All MetalShaping - Austin 7 special 20 years off the road

Hopefully this link works for you:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/londonsquirrel/

If not I'll have a go at attaching a couple of photos.

It was built up from bits in the kitchen then assembled in a tent in the garden before coming apart, through the side gate, and assembled in the street. Really I was born 30 years too late for such things. Alas these days it will be an "in the shed" project not the spare bedroom and kitchen table. (Still married and keen to remain so).

The tail is single curvature. The bit that "needed" to be double curve is hidden under the luggage lid. Austin 7 Ulsters (and similar) have a lid for the spare wheel in that position so it looks fairly normal.

My memory isn't 100pct but I'm convinced the scuttle was done with no more than the heel of my hand. Its not quite "a combination of cones" but I don't think it was hammered. The little black bit on the tip of the tail was hammer formed.

The bulge on the side is space for the accelerator foot. The footwell is that narrow. Again that's fairly normal practice. Its an aluminium wok lid that was trimmed and squished. The original rad cowl was a made from a wok lid as well. Later I did a "cut and shut" on a saloon rad shell. The complication in that was a slight taper. I've still got the bits that came out as trophies from that job. It got a better fitting bonnet top at the same time. Louvres were made my cutting slots with a hand knibbler and teasing out with "seaming pliers", hand pliers with perhaps 3in wide flat plates as jaws. Not sure if that's the name for them.

Mudguards were not really sturdy enough. Very light and the edges were folded over without wire. They soon split and needed backing up with ali strip. New mudguards are high on the list. I've pondered laminated ply (I've a vacuum press) but of course I need to aspire to better now I'm signed up here :)

In the twenty years since I was active I've acquired a light folder about 2ft wide, a cheap bead roller, a narrow ring roller (6in wide?). Lots of my "first jobs" are things like upgrading the bead roller and making a better folder.

In terms of strengths to play to I've a huge band saw and linisher all sorts else for shaping wood, so making complex hammer forms shouldn't be an issue. Of the many ideas for mudguards is a full size hammer form. I've also pondered making flat ones just with a bead rolled detail as well as having a go at tuck shrinking and plannishing. The price of a small english wheel these days I'm tempted to invest in one for the plannishing stage. (Planishing or Plannishing with a double-n?) I really don't want a power hammer, I'm noisy enough as it is.