Re: Grandpa's '28 526 - The good, The bad, and the Ugly

Posted by Ray17015 On 2020/5/9 17:38:54

I've made very little progress over the last couple years, kids sports and I'm still in the reserve and youth officiating..., all to say, just life and priorities have put the project on the back burner, now with the "stay-at-home" orders, I've been dusting off old parts and such. Patterns? we don't need no stinking patterns. Seriously, my wood was damaged to the point that it was almost useless. I've relied mostly on the steel shell to recreate what was there.

Don't worry about the way that Packard made a joint, they made thousands and were concerned about production, you are making one. Some of their joints don't make any sense structurally, but they just needed to make long pieces out or shorter ones - for cost. What I have found most useful is that I make all of the initial pieces out of pine, 2x8s 4x4s etc. then once it is perfect, I make it again in the correct ash. The finished car is only about 30 bdft of ash, but trust me, I have thrown away hundreds of bdft of pine. I once took an entire week off work because I just couldn't get the A-pillars the way that I liked. I ended up with 3 pages of notes that detailed in which order certain cuts had to be made to accommodate odd angles. I don't have these notes anymore, and they really wouldn't help you anyway, as some were just work arounds for the shop equipment that I had at the time.

Good luck!