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December 6. 2004 - Slight change in plans |
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Somehow I always find new things to mess with.
 It's something that has really bothered me. The way that the tail end of the fender just ends on an upward tilt. It makes a car look like it has a big tall ass. I took some time to look at a few of my favorite cars and sure enough, they all end with a downward slope at the rear fender. So armed with a japanese pullsaw and an angle grinder, Jason, James and I cut off the top 1" from the back of the fender and blended the line back to the centerline of the wheel arch. It's subtle I know, such a small change. But to me it's those small details that will take the car from being neat, to being special. So I didn't get to spray any primer on this weekend. That doesn't dissapoint me in the least. I'm actually pretty stoked about the little change in the back that made a big change in the way the car "feels" to me.
 Here you can see the joint compound outer shell stripped off to reveal the ribs and the styrofoam understructure.The entire car is built this way. If you read far enough back in my
diary you will see that there is a central spine and the ribs are
attached to this. Then styrofoam blocks are cut to slip between the
ribs and glued into place with liquid nails. A hot-wire is used to
stripe the styrofoam to the tops of the ribs, and then a layer of
plaster covers the entire structure. That's the entire process in a
nutshell. It is very inexpensive, and pretty simple, but great
attention has to be paid to the thickness of the plaster and you must
absolutely NOT skimp on the liquid nails, The styrofoam must adhere
completely to the ribs. If this is not done, later on the plaster will
crack and craze along the line where the styrofoam meets the rib, no
matter how thick the plaster is at that joint. This has driven me
pretty crazy but I have learned a lot from these mistakes. So pay
attention! :-)
After both fenders were stripped bare and laid low, I mixed up a big
batch of Fix-It-All chemical plaster and slathered in a base layer over
top of the foam and ribs. This layer was kept low because the next step
is to add a top layer of standard (gypsum based) joint compound. The
Fix-it-all dries so hard that it can't be sanded. Actually it CAN be
sanded, but the coeficient of sanding is so different from the standard
joint compound that it is impossible to get the point where they meet
to join seamlessly.
 So
this is where she sits right now. There is more work to be done. You
may notice that the front end is shaping up nicely and I have begun
building the brackets for the Hella 90mm Halogens. From there I will
design and build some headlamp buckets that will cover the brackets but
let the lamp fresnels show through. I will build those on the
workbench. Once the buckets are shaped I will cut into the front
fenders and insert the finished buckets. When I cut into the fenders I
will try to save the forms so that I can use them as shape plugs for
the plexiglass (scratch-resistant lexan?) covers. The plexiglass will
be heat molded into the shape of the fender and then cut to the outline
of the headlamp bucket opening and later attached to the final bodywork
with some stainless flush hex head cap screws.
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