Sports Cars

Frankie Flood at Handverker posted a short metal shaping video the other day. I don't usually watch too many videos but since I'm a panel beater junkie, I figured he wouldn't have posted it if it wasn't good, so let's give it a shot. Damn! That guy is good. Made a quarter panel from one piece of steel. That's impressive. At the end of the video there's a link address to find out more about who he is and what he does. He's selling a collection of three videos that I'd like to see. One of them covers making a door skin. I told Jimmy about the videos and he said order them and he'll pay for them. I didn't have the heart to tell him that they would be more than $300.00.  I think it's going to take more than a video before I'm ready to make a pair of doors for a Jaguar XK120, so we'll hold off on those.

Photo From Here

They're pretty cars. Jimmy's is pretty rough. I haven't looked at it real close but the body doesn't seem to be too rusty. I don't know what happened to the doors. but I'd like to tackle making them one of these days. However, before I try making doors for the Jag, I figured I should try and fix the fender for the other English sports car project, my buddy's Triumph TR3. And since the weather yesterday was warm enough I could hold the tools bare-handed. I figured I should give it a try.

Bingo! Nothing to this sheet metal stuff. In the top photo you can see how the fender rusted behind the stone guard as well as the shape being a compound curve. In the middle photo you can see that it also needs to have a flange on three sides. Bottom photo shows the finished part. Other than drilling a few holes to mount it to the body, my part of the process should be done. My buddy's a pretty handy dude so he should be able to finish it up from here. I could weld it together but there's a joggle near the top of the patch and I'd want to be able to fit it up to the car. If need be, I can do it at his house. He's got tools and a welder. 

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It took me less time than I thought it would but part of that is the fact that I've got a dedicated place to do this kind of work now. Plus, I'm getting a little better. Not ready for prime-time yet but I am getting better. Scratch another job off the list.

I also got the fork lowers for the 900 cleaned up and the new seals installed. I'm planning on getting the forks finished up this week. Sidecovers are primed and painted as well. As soon as I get the seat mounted up I'll paint the ducktail and fender. Coming right along.