Grill Continued

 The festivities dealing with the shaping of the grill vanes continues.  I discovered the best way of shaping the brass over the form that I made was to shrink the metal once the curve was formed with wooden hammers rather than metal.  I used my woodworking hammers that are typically used for cuting with wood chisels.  The big benefit is that there are not indentations caused by the metal hammers that have to be filed out later.

None of this is attached yet, so the wood spacers are used to hold position and gives a chance to look at it from both sides.  There is still a lot to do here.  The new vanes need to be trimmed at the lower edge.  The original vanes need to be removed, straightened , and then the old and new need to be polished by the chromer.  The studs need to be replaced.  Then the vanes need to be attached to the surround and finally the assembly goes back to the chromer.   This is much more labor-intensive than I would have guessed but I think it will look original when it is finished.  Hopefully.

Chrome Bits

 The first two shots are of a bunch of chrome bits that have returned from the rechroming shop.  These were done by South Shore Plating and look great.  Mostly these pieces are the convertible top frame and the windshield frame with a couple odds and ends.

The third and forth shots are of the grill with the chrome removed.  I am going to try to repair this believe it or not.

The fifth photo is of a pattern that I made out of 1/8" steel.  It has a radius of 22.5" and the notches that are on either side are to allow clamps to hold down a piece of 1/32" x 1-3/4"x 24" flat brass.  The brass is annealed then folded over and hammered flat on the sides.  This was my trial run and was giving me so much trouble prior to the annealing that I was ready to give up.  After the annealing, it formed very quickly although I was too aggressive and made dents in the sides that are hard to smooth over.  This was practice, but I think the process will work.  O down and nine to go.

Body Jig Continued

 This should help explain a few of the things referenced in the last post.  The body jig is pretty much done now except for the front vertical supports.  I need to make a few measurements on the frame that is currently away at camp to finish those.  The way the fittings work, both the horizontal and vertical tubes can slide allowing a great variety of possible attachment points on different cars as well as different heights.  At the lowest setting, the bottom of the xk120 body will be at about 20 inches off the floor and the adjustment to the verticals will allow it to be moved up by 9 inches.   The whole assembly is quite rigid and should work well.  Now if I can just get the body back.

Body Jig

On XKlovers, in the library section,  there is body jig diagram that looks very well designed.  It was constructed of a bunch of 2-1/2" x 2-1/2" x 3/16" TS fittings that were adjustable over a set of TS2x2x3/16" runners ,cross rails, and uprights.  I started with that design and to make it even more adjustable, I used the same type of adjustable fittings to support the 8" casters which will allow them to slide on the long rails.  Then (I don't have the TS2x2x3/16" stock yet) I intend to make the uprights also able to slide vertically so it will fit the Jag but should also be adaptable easily to about any car body.  I will explain more of this when I get the 2x2 stock.

My welding is getting a bit better.  Still looks bad but is holding well.

Right Rear Fender in Primer

 I know that there are those out there who think that sanding parties are fruitless fun ending in nothing useful, but you would be wrong.
The sanding parties actually lead to something- painting parties.

These shots don't really show all of the fun that was had.  First, this bit of original steel was blasted on the back side, then sanded, then the rust pits were filled with a glazing compound, and then sanded again.  The outside was sanded to within an inch of its life to get down to clean metal, then filler was added to quite a lot of the surface, then sanded, then glazed, then sanded again.  Both sides were then cleaned, an epoxy primer was mixed up, I put on my moon suit and respirator and finally primed it.  What I am trying to do here is block out the panels where I can but more importantly, to get the raw steel protected

Priming panels and bits

 So the non-industrial smoothing can actually lead to something- mostly more smoothing.  In this episode I have been sanding panels and other assorted bits and finally this has lead to some epoxy primer being applied to those same bits. I used a quart of primer all told which is less than I would have guessed but apparently there is more surface area than I thought.  At least there is some seal now on some of the bare metal against the humidity.

In other news, I did a little online searching and found an address for what I thought might be my chromer.  There were a lot of people with the same name and I found two people, one a junior,(the father and son worked together) who were living at the same location.  So I showed up there Saturday morning and the guess was right.  So I got all of my missing chrome pieces back.  They are obviously not done but now they are not missing and they can be used to check the panel fit.

Proper Heater

I found a heater that is made for the xk120 and have dismantled it and refurbished it. For the most part it was in pretty good shape and generally needed to be cleaned, lubed and repainted. The core is holding pressure but it is 6o years old and I may replace it just because. The motor was dragging but once the bearings and brushes were cleaned it does fine. Now if I just had a car to put it in.