Ode to the Floor Part 3

Your probably thinking wow a three part ode! But in reality this could probably be  like a 30 part ode. By the time I'm done you might hate me more than Shakespeare. Sometimes I wonder if his Mother even liked his writing. I bet she even asked what in the heck are you talking about? I am sure my writing can be in the same boat sometimes too.  You should just be happy you don't have to read my handwriting.

This one is going to be a lot of pictures because like they say a picture is worth a thousand words. Dad and I worked for a couple of days over the first week of March because I had time off and got quite a lot done. Now you might have seen these pictures before but they are indeed different because as noted in previous posts there were a few problems. Here is what it looks like with those problems fixed...

This is what the main floor structure looks like. Isn't it pretty? That's where all of our big fat butts are going to go. You think we should add more cross pieces? Sorry now we are back on topic here we will talk about some of the details that went into this. So as mentioned before our fender aprons aren't original and so we had to change some things. In the original there is an extra bubble so to speak that attaches to the fender apron and then also attaches in a "z" shape to the main overall board of the floor. Although hard to notice the main board does actually have some curves and angles to it. So we had to modify our angle iron a little bit which you will notice in the picture has my lovely assistant Lydia in...

We have yet to attach the other portion of the "z" which will be the portion that you will see inside of the car. These pieces will go under the car and only be seen if you get under it. Which will probably be more often than I want to.

For most of the time Dad worked on the back of the car. Adding the two outside pieces and the back cross piece. The back cross piece is an invention of my Father's because we did not have the drawings of what it really was. But he is probably really close to what it was.  He made the Traveler all off pictures, so we should be okay.

These are the outside pieces you will notice there is a groove. This is for the z bar mentioned above. This way it will sit flat with the rest of the wood. The top part was done with a dato blade and the second picture is hard to see but the upper left portion you will notice another cut out this again is for the z bar. But this was done with a jointer.

The part that is next to my hand is the cut out for the back cross piece. The top part of it is also cut out because there is an angle iron that goes the full length of the back. This groove allows it to sit flush again with the floor board.

The back cross piece has a cut out that goes under the overall piece and back corner piece which is the picture with my hand in it. The square cut out that is opposite of my hand is fr the floor boards to lay in so that we can screw them in. The last picture shows you how it all fits together.

Ode to the Floor Part 2 - oops

I know in life we never like to admit our mistakes and I wouldn't in this case either except I want this for posterity. While our company was in town and we were working on the floor there was a small miscalculation. The best way I could explain it is that we didn't get a very accurate measurement which turned out to cause a significant gap in our floor. Now Jim I know you read this so when you put your floor together jot this note down. Assemble it from the back and move your way forward. We chose to do it the other way which is part of the reason this mistake was made. but it logically makes sense to start from there because that was the part we could measure it from. But like they say hind sight is always 20/20.

So needless to say we couldn't save our two pieces that go up under the cowl because we took too much off of the one side. So in the coming days and weeks we will be making these pieces again. There is a plus side to building three cars we have spare parts! So although we make fun of my Father for thinking and analyzing and then analyzing about thinking. Had we let him do this a little bit more the outcome may have been a little bit different.

There were more mistakes made on this car but we're going to walk away with our dignity and our heads held high because we are men and we don't ask for directions. And apparently we don't read tape measures either.

Ode to the Floor Part 1

The floor has come with many mixed feelings and emotions. As many of you think of floors there is really not a whole lot to them and in need not very exciting, nor do we care. This floor could probably have the same kinds of emotions with it because most will not notice it nor look at it and it is actually covered by a mat. I know some of you are thinking then why work so hard on it? Believe me Grandpa you may have been on to something with doing the floor as one solid piece. But I know when it is all said and done I will love my floor and it will be a good solid foundation.

Because the floor has to be two inches thick and you cant get two inch think wood. We spent the better part of almost a day and a half gluing together pieces and then planing them back down. We first thought maybe we wouldn't have to and we could just do it an inch and seven eighths, but the floor wouldn't line up if we did. The reason it took so long is because the main boards that run front to back are almost 70 inches long. So it pretty much took all of my Father's clamps to glue them together. Se attached pictures...

All glued together

The piece that goes up under the cowl

Overall piece that connects everything together

For the floor they have cross pieces to help give it more structural strength. So we had to cut grooves in the boards so that they could fit together. Here is a photo of the cross piece...

There are three of these that go in the overall piece and one that goes on the piece that goes under the cowl.

Luckily Dad used to be a member of a wood club for the company he works with. Because of this he acquired a few router bits that have come in handy for a few of our operations including cutting the grooves. Here are a few pictures of what they look like all cut out...

First we measured out where we needed each hole. Then to help take out some of the meat of the wood we drilled several holes so the router bit didn't have to cut so much, saving it for future projects. Then true to my Father's nature he made a nifty jig that worked perfectly for cutting the groove. We used a half inch bit and a plunge router and the results are the bottom picture.

With having to plane these boards back down we ended up producing four more bags. Man I wish we could put these back together. If we make too many more bags I might have to charge for rides.

If You build IT They Will Come!

And who might you ask came? My Grandfather and a friend of his name Jim (the man we are building the kits for). They were kind enough to bring the car down to us. I will add at this point that one of the neat things about my car (it is sure nice saying that...may car) is that the engine and thew frame were meant to be together. Which when you build it the way we are building it that is near impossible to accomplish. Thanks to another one of my Grandfather's friend Elvin he helped to acquire all of this along with my Grandfather to make it all happen. Both were instrumental it in getting it done quickly too. Enjoy the picture...

Our main task for that weekend was to try and get the floor set. The problem is that we had some to gain reference points from the car which turned out to be a harder task than we thought. There are two pieces that go up under the cowl that we had to cut down and manipulate to fit. The first side took several hours to get set. The second side Jim and I put in in about 5 minutes. after that we continued to set pieces that we could get the fenders also set. Although that only took a few sentences to explain what we did, this process took us basically two days.

The fender aprons or whatever they are called are not the originals and will have to be modified and manipulated to fit our station wagon. Grandpa and Jim worked on the beginning stages of it. Might I add they did a great job! And my Dad and I will come up with a way to fit the rest of it together. At this point you can add another 2 bags of sawdust.

I would like to personally thank all of those who put forth lots of time and effort into getting the car to this point. It has been a lot of fun and it wouldn't be as nearly as fun if it wasn't for the great family and friends. I am indeed grateful to my Grandfather to showing and letting me share in his hobby and for my Mom and Dad for putting in many long hours in running with their sons crazy ideas.