1/4 scale '41 Willys

Looking great!

Nice tooling for the Shopdog.

 

I usually get about 6 hours of shop time. I was sidetracked building the Shopdog, and then the bifilm experiment, and cast iron lost foam failures and then successes.

 

Yep, then the guys were talking about making thumbnail dies for the reciprocating hammer, so I machined up a set.





I domed the sample above as a test, and then ran the strip on the left through a number of times and shortened it by 1/8" without too much marking. I haven't needed them yet, but you never know.

 

Built the drivers door frame today. The inner brace will need some bead roller work to form ribs and inset for the door panel.

 

Great job on the thumbnail dies. I like the idea of using a rod at an angle. Looks like they work great.

Making progress on the Willys.

 

That is impressive what you can do/get with various dies.
I am sure there is a bit of an art to doing that.

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Thanks Andy. The optimum angle seems to 17 degrees, and the old school guys drill for the round stock. Others are
CNC ing them and even casting in Kirksite, which from what I am able to gather just is Zamak poured in sand molds rather than die cast. They could probably be done in lost foam.
The thumbnail dies are the mechanization of tucking forks. Old timers used them and a stump to raise the metal and shrink the edges. I made these just because I had the plans. I really like the control of the English Wheel, but for the reverse curves I will need to do later for the front fenders these might come in handy.

 

Good to know the details. I had only seen a ground out version with all smooth curves. I do understand the principal of operation but bet it will be a learning experience when I finally use some. Right now I'm stumped.

 

I started on the door hinges just to get an idea of their difficulty. I settled on silver soldering a strip to a 1/4" dowel with a hole drilled for the hinge pin, and another piece for the outer female mount with two end plates welded to the end of the leaf rolled around a 1/4" dowel. I used 1/16" sheet, but may need to go slightly heavier. The leaf is about 5/8" wide.

 

Your Thumbnail dies look just like the big ones I used on a baileigh power hammer during one of their training classes!! I really would love to own one of those but they are $10-20K. but building a smaller shop sized unit..... might be the ticket!

 

CCB, I downsized my machine for the modeling I do, but it could have been built with an 18" throat and a taller opening to work on full size panels. I really like the that I am able to make mild steel tooling to shape sheet metal quickly.
There are a couple of alternate designs floating around on the web. I chose this for the variable stroke, but don't change it very often, and added the variable speed which I really like and use. I have less than $500 in it, and most of that was the frame and the 4140 shafting which I had to get new.

 

When I started this project I ordered some of Ron Covell's videos. His bead roller DVD includes making a bomber seat using the roller and dimple dies. I ordered the plans with the idea of making a small one.
So as a break from the Willys doors I reduced the plans to 1/4 scale, marked up a sheet of .035 " aluminum and used the Shopdog to form the beads. They are too small in scale to use the bead roller. Then I used a step drill to make the holes and turned up some dimple dies to go in my rivet press. I tried to weld the .035 aluminum, but will need more practice to do that, so I riveted the seat bottom and edge bead with .o46 aluminum wire.

 

Mighty fine! I've seen that seat made on YouTube. You do great work!

 

Thanks Andy, I see you have been busy.
I'm back at it.
I spent some time shaping the edges of the door jambs to the firewall and quarter panel and then started welding. I pieced in some gaps where the roof will meet the top of the jamb and the sail panel? so the weld joint will be away from the prior weld and ease the finishing. There has been minimal distortion and the body still settles over the buck.easily.







I left it like this last night. I need to be fresh for that length of weld or end up with swiss cheese.

 

Nice.

It looks like it's all bucked up.

 

Fantastic piece of work.
Definitely has that "WOW" factor.

You certainly have the metal working down to a science.

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Thanks guys, just learning here. I'm a total immersion type, or maybe just it's a "go big, or go home" mentality, but I've always been intrigued by the old time metal shapers and thought this would be a good exercise.