Howdy !

Thanks for the kind words about the 356G ! I just hope to keep making progress so it gets finished.

I do have an english wheel and a planishing hammer - plus a bunch of basic hammers, dollies, slappers and other metalworking hand tools. The panels that I need to make have very little crown in them - so it shouldn't be much of a challenge - which is a good thing because I haven't done much of this except in a race car fab 2 week class. But I have a bunch of pros around that can step in and fix whatever I mess up or can't do.

Yes, the car is all steel at this time. Not sure I'll do the Trunk and Hood in steel - but maybe. I have 6 rolls of pre-preg carbon fiber in the deep freeze and a hot bonder in the shop for that part of the project - so we'll see when I get there if I want to do more work taking splashes off the exisiting parts and then building up the molds for the finished parts.

Hope'd to see the transmission mount get machined today - but I've again been bumped by higher paying jobs... little fish - big pond.

Jim

Thought I'd explain what a Hot Bonder is. Most aircraft these days are built using composite materials. So when those components get damaged, lightening strikes, bird strikes, hail damage, etc - we use portable Hot Bonders to go fix the damage instead of moving the plane or the component to the shop.

These type units have built in heater circuits, thermocouple detection circuits, vac pumps, computer controlled cure cycles - and a printer to printout the cure cycle for the part's repair record as proof the patch/repair was done per the structural repair manual.

Anyway, I bought one from surplus at our airline when they bought a bunch of new 'dual' units (2 of all the above in one portable unit). You do the repair - then put a heater blanket on top connected to the processor controlled heater circuit, put several thermocouples in there connected to the monitor circuit, vac bag/seal the deal - and then select the appropriate 'cure' cycle on the processor and go. I also bought several rolls 'out of shelf life' pre-preg carbon fiber (already has the resin in the cloth) and have that in the deep freeze with the pizza and pasta..... good enough for hoods and seats.

You can also vac bag a 'wet layup' if you have a vac source. That's the last pic it's a portable vac source for doing standard wet layups where you mix and add the resin to the dry fiber on the part or in a mold - then bag it and squish it with vac and a bleeder cloth to remove excess resins.

Wet layup is very messy - while pre-preg is not, but it's expensive for the materials and tools needed.

Pretty neat stuff. You have an interesting position there with your aircraft background. I did a little of the wet style stuff back in material engineering class in college. It was a lot of fun. I would love to be able to put it to practical use, but I don't have a vacuum pump or anything.

Took a few hours off this morning to watch as Accurate Driveline and Machining started the machine work on the transmission mount. Chunk of 1.5 billet, about 2 hours and 40,000 lines of commands to complete. Really amazing and is the first time I've taken something from a sketch to a finished machined part. Mark at ADM is a workaholic like the rest of us. Helps run his fathers business - 2 kids - and supports and races mid-west sprint, midget, and legend cars. The last shot is just a few of the parts he provides for the midget and legend racers - and he also does fender badges if someone needs one. Should pickup the finished part tomorrow - and I'll have some Cad files of the part. http://www.accuratedriveline.com/

so do we even want to know what that cost ??

Yea, what he said.

Mick

Post Hi-Jack

Hi Mick :thumbsup:

Hi Marty
Man your truck (pick-up) is looking great.

I'm all about the numbers. Come on Jim give us the dollar amounts. We need some reality numbers.


Mick

No Hi Jack, Jim is doing an awsome build and I love the build details.

Keep dollar amounts to your self. This is hobby not a bragging contest.

Great project looking forward to future updates.....