05-06-2018, 11:28 PM
Having already made tooling for the louvres when I fabricated the cars nose, I made some rapid progress with the bonnet on Saturday morning, managing to progress from raw sheet of aluminium to an almost finished side bonnet in under 2 hours, before family activities took me away from the workshop.
When I returned to the garage I had no clear idea how to make the hinge, clarity coming in the form of some excellent guidance from Mr Williams, who inspired my next steps. Thank you Ian.
I decided I needed to practice on a smaller bit of the car and set out to make the fuel tank access hatch, this is located atop the cars fabric tail section and is only a few inches across. First thing to make was a bit of tooling in the form of some old and broken mole grips modified by the addition of some 1/4" steel carefully ground and welded to their jaws.
I also ground a chamfer onto the long edge of some 4"" steel bar, which when clamped onto the sheet alloy I was using to make the hatch, allowed me to chase out the initial shape of the hinges from the flat alloy I used for my hatch. None of which I photographed!
I found that as the curve developed, that by gradually moving the chamfered bar back and re clamping, I could increase the curvature until the tail had come through 180 degrees. I then replaced the chamfered bar with round bar of the correct diameter and chased the final shape with a piece of tapered hard wood, following up with my modified mole grips to close up and finish the hinge.
Equipped with this experience I will now have a go at the rather larger bonnet hinge.
Regards, Mark.
When I returned to the garage I had no clear idea how to make the hinge, clarity coming in the form of some excellent guidance from Mr Williams, who inspired my next steps. Thank you Ian.
I decided I needed to practice on a smaller bit of the car and set out to make the fuel tank access hatch, this is located atop the cars fabric tail section and is only a few inches across. First thing to make was a bit of tooling in the form of some old and broken mole grips modified by the addition of some 1/4" steel carefully ground and welded to their jaws.
I also ground a chamfer onto the long edge of some 4"" steel bar, which when clamped onto the sheet alloy I was using to make the hatch, allowed me to chase out the initial shape of the hinges from the flat alloy I used for my hatch. None of which I photographed!
I found that as the curve developed, that by gradually moving the chamfered bar back and re clamping, I could increase the curvature until the tail had come through 180 degrees. I then replaced the chamfered bar with round bar of the correct diameter and chased the final shape with a piece of tapered hard wood, following up with my modified mole grips to close up and finish the hinge.
Equipped with this experience I will now have a go at the rather larger bonnet hinge.
Regards, Mark.