F/C "Hemi" random pics

I dont think I can explain how I built the motor.......it's made completely from wood with a few exceptions.....I'm steady adding details to it, should be ready for paint before too long....

Almost every piece is built to come apart for final finish, then reassembled..............................

Approximate size without the Headers: 14"t x 12"w x 12"l.....overall width is 28"

"Battleship Trailer"

I started this project with absolutely no plan whatsoever. All I really new was that it had to fit the boat and it had to roll. It turned out to be a beautiful piece of work that is also quite functional.

Using 1 1/4" angled steel I welded up a rectangular shape to fit the length and width of the boat. At this point I was thinking basic boat trailer. I robbed the go cart tires and wheels from another project and welded up an Axle with carrier bearings to make it roll. Plywood formers were cut to fit the contour of the Hull. During a particular evening of Beer drinkin', my buddy Bob and I were kicking around the idea of making some fenders......"Lets build some out of Aluminum"......okay..

Using flat aluminum stock we cut three pieces for each fender. The side pieces were the dia. that we needed, and the width was tack welded to the sides to create the shape of the fender. This was as far as we got. It was now a functioning trailer that I could move around while I continued work on the boat itself. This is how it sat for a couple of years.........When I finally found the inspiration to finish it, there was quite a bit of Aluminum welding still to be done. Although I welded the entire framework for the trailer, I don't have the equipment or the knowledge to do Aluminum. Not too many people are capable of this type of work, even if they say they are....From start to finish, four different people welded on these fenders before they were complete..........

The next step was to do the finish work.....this is were everything changed.....after a week of grinding, sanding and polishing, these fenders were as slick as a piece of jewelry!!!...Now I'm getting a glimpse of how cool this trailer can be. All the welds on the trailer were ground and finished, then prepped for paint. I chose the bright red to contrast with the dreary grays that the ship is painted. After all the finish work was complete, it was reassembled with stainless hardware, then hand pinstriped and lettered to add some finishing touches to it.

I'm always amazed at how these projects tend to take on a life of their own once they're started. In the beginning, I never imagined this to be anything more than a simple boat trailer.....needless to say I am quite surprised with the end result........

"Structural components"

As this project progressed I realized there were some areas that were going to carry most of the weight of the car. The bracket that holds the body to the chassis, and the front axle needed to be much stronger than anything I could have built from wood. In this case, I decided to use steel tubing for strength, and to keep a somewhat scale appearance.

I built the front axle from wood as a mockup to give me some kind of idea what it would take to build it with the necessary structural integrity. After some trial and error, I settled on 3/4" steel tubing. Instead of trying to bend the tubing, it was much easier to cut all the pieces and then simply weld them together. All the welding on these parts was done by my buddy Bob, who, when he's not "shuckin' corn" is one of the best fabricators that I know.....

The rear bracket was made from 1/4" brake line and was much more complicated. I built several jigs for theses parts because of the number of pieces that were required. The two side pieces were made first by laying all the parts in a jig and tack welding everything together. The finished pieces were then placed in another jig to add all of the cross bracing. Once I had a good solid structure, all the welds were ground and finished with bondo to achieve a very slick looking bracket with plenty of strength. After a few test fittings everything was primed and painted to match the chassis........

F/C "Building the Body"

Building the body was quite a project. I've never done anything like this before, and I really had no idea how to go about it. What I did know was that I would be able to build the sides flat and then temporarily connect them together with frame work that would later be removed. If I got that far I figured that I could add everything else to the initial frame work....maybe...

I started with an outline of the side of the body, they were cut from 3/16 birch ply and clamped flat. My biggest obstacle was to create the horizontal body line. I laid a stringer the length of the body were the line should be. I then made another flat outline of the side and cut it down the center where the body line would be. These pieces were then glued over the stringer and to the first outline to form a shallow v shape that would create the body line. Once I had this shape, I was confident I could add the rest of the body.

The two side panels were then held together with some basic framework to keep everything square while I built the rest of the body. Next came the front end and the hood. This was some pretty straight forward wood working. The front end was a lot of simple shapes added to a flat piece that held the front fenders together. The Hood was bent over some more temporary framework that would later be removed. The top of the fenders were boxed in next to tie everything together. These parts were really a lot of fun to make, I had no major problems, and the front end was looking good beyond my expectations.

A lot of cardboard mockups were used to create the roofline. More temporary framework was added to keep the proper height while the plywood was bent to make the roof.

Lots of clamping and gluing here!!!....With all the framework and clamps still in place, the front Pillars were added. These were made out of 1/8" aluminum for strength, screwed to the roof and hood and later covered with wood.

From this point on, everything else is just simple fill work.

I've still got a lot of shaping and body work to do at this point. The roofline is a little flat, but will be filled and shaped to get a nice shallow curve. The frontend is a little blocky yet and will be shaped and streamlined to give it a good smooth look.

I still need to add the lower back quarter panels, spoiler, and some aluminum pieces to extend the lower rocker panels. The windows will be made of plexiglass of course. There will be quite a bit of work on the inside also, lots of tin work and scale tubing from the firewall to the nose. At this point I couldn't be happier with it, there's still a lot of work to be done before final paint, but I feel its all downhill from here................

F/C paint scheme

I've been thinking about the final paint scheme for a long time.....Although I used the Jungle Jim kit as my scale reference, I'm still not sure which way I want to go with it. The Vega body style was quite popular in the early 70's and they are all very cool.

The JJ scheme has some great artwork and gold leaf lettering, and was also a rather famous car that most people recognize. I've already painted the chassis metallic blue so I'm somewhat limited to what I can do, and this would be the logical choice. I have also noticed in my reference photos that there is a lot of subtle changes in the artwork through time. Most photos show the cartoon character with what appears to be a beer mug in his hand, sometimes its mysteriously not there?......

Maybe it was an issue with sponsors.........I dunno?.......

This car is baddass, I like it a lot........I've noticed the bubbles on the front fenders of most of these cars, I plan on adding them to mine regardless of the final scheme, I could use the clearance. Since this is not an exact scale project, I'm kind of pickin' an choosin' what I like from a lot of different cars....

I don't know much about this car......but I like it.....in the end I'll probably go with a scheme people will recognize......maybe..... comments are welcome.

F/C...Rearend

The rear end is one of my favorite pieces on this entire project. It was rather complicated to build, but the end result was more than I had hoped for.

Basic construction started with a piece of 1" dowel rod. The main housing was several pieces of pine cut to a rough diameter and then slid onto the dowel and glued into place. The next step was to turn it on the lathe to get the correct size and taper. The front and rear housing were simple blocks that were added after the lathe work was complete.

Once I was happy with the initial shape, the structural work was added. This is were it got somewhat tricky. Each piece was cut and fit individually, the half rounds on the rear of the housing are dowel rods that were split in half. There was an enormous amount of body work on this part. Epoxy and small amounts of Bondo were used to smooth everything out and create the appearance of machined housing. The bolts were added after all the final sanding was done. I wish I had snapped a few pic's before this piece was painted to show the work that was involved.

The brackets that hold the housing in place are fairly simple parts. The first halve of the bracket slides onto the axle, the outside ring captures both the bracket and the mounting point on the frame. All of the major components are designed to come apart since the entire car is built and assembled first, then disassembled for Body and Paint work.

The final piece is beautiful......................

Battleship...building the hull

Years of building R/C airplanes has taught me many techniques to build structures light, strong and simple. This hull was built very much like an airplane fuselage, 2 halves that would eventually be fit together to form a single structure. Keep in mind that this is the first boat that I've ever built. I was more concerned with strength than weight through this entire project realizing a lot of ballast would be needed in the end to make it sit right in the water, and I might as well have a good solid hull since I'm gonna fill it full of lead anyway. I also wanted to end up having a big fun boat that anybody could drive without worry of putting a big hole in the bottom of it.

I drew up some simple plans to determine the size and shape that I wanted. 3/16 Birch plywood was used for most of the structure.

First the Keel and the rest of the outline was laidout. I made a pattern for each former to gradually get the shape of the hull that I thought would look right. While all the formers were temporarily in place, I laid marks to notch them for the Stringers that were to follow. After the formers were notched, they were all glued in place.

As a side note, I tend to fabricate anything that I can instead of paying for over priced wood at the hobby store. I always seem to have more time than money, so if I gotta spend a Saturday afternoon cutting my own stock, that's what I do. Besides, that what these projects are all about, building things from scratch. Sometimes it's just not practical, but I'll usually make anything that I can.

I decided to cut all the stringers that I would need. Using 3/4" White Pine, I ripped a large pile of 1/4"x1/4"x4' stringers. This is a little dangerous but if you can have a buddy on the other side of the saw helping with the feed it goes pretty quick. My Table saw is an old Sears and Roebuck that a friend of mine found in an alley years ago, as far as I can tell its from the early 40's, you cant get parts for it anymore, it has none of the modern safety features, its dangerous, but it will cut 1/8" stock all day long.

Laying all the stringers is a little tricky, this is some real wood bendin' here. Clamps and Tie wraps were used to keep things in place while the glue setup.


Once all the stringers were in place, I wanted to do some fill work to the very bottom of the hull in case of some log jumping or driving it up on the bank!!

On the very front and bottom I used Aspen to fill, which is a beautiful wood that is somewhere between a hard and soft wood. It added a lot of strength and is fairly easy to work. On the large open area of the bow I used hard balsa to fill and shape.

The next step was to sheet the entire structure using 1/8" liteply. Wetting the sheeting was needed to get it to bend around all the curves. I want to add here that the entire structure needs to be clamped down flat during sheeting to prevent warping......

Once both halves were completed, they were joined together, shaped, sanded and fiberglassed to form a very strong hull. I cut all my own stock up to this point except for the 1/8" liteply. I believe I dropped about $150. on sheeting at the hobby store.........anybody know where I can get one of them there fancy sheeting cutters?????

Headers...more wood bendin'

A common misconception is that I spend a lot of my time "bendin' wood"....although it's possible, it's not very practical in most situations. There's usually a simple solution to most problems. All of these projects are in the back of my mind regardless of what I'm working on, and there might be several different way to go about it. My attitude is "I guess I'll figure it out when I get to that point".

Tubing or PVC is the most logical solution, and that's what I ended up using on the dragster. In the end it was the best way to go, however, bending plastic presents it own set of problems.

With the F/C I really wanted to use as much wood as possible, within reason. It's just a personal preference, but on the other hand I'll use whatever it takes to get the job done in the end.

After some trial and error, I settled on dowelrod. Each tube consisted of two separate pieces of wood. After both lengths were cut, a 45 degree angle was made on each end. A quick jig was built to ensure that all the tubes were exactly the same when glued up. After all 8 pieces were done, another vertical jig was built to drill the short end of the tube. This was quite tricky!

In hindsight, I should've drilled the ends before the two pieces were joined. After several test pieces, I was fairly confident I could drill them without screwing up the entire tube. Using a large Paddle Bit, each piece was drilled as deep as possible without breaking the thin tubing that remained. I decided that 1" was deep enough. A good jig was really important here as a little bit of slop would've been disastrous. After the drilling was complete, a layer of 5 min. epoxy was applied to strengthen the thin wall of the tube.

The next step was to create the curve in the bends. At this point the tube looks like a letter L. The outside corner was ground down to the determined radius, then the inside corner was filled with scrap wood and Bondo to complete the bend.....pretty simple huh?

Another jig was built to hold all the tubes in place to the shape of the final header. The short ends were glued together, and the long ends were marked to cut at the correct angle. The mounting plate was added last to make it a strong structure.

Bending PVC creates another set of problems, the worst being that the bend wants to collapse in on itself. After quite a bit of trial and error, I ended up putting a piece of large electrical wire inside the tube, heating it to the point of failure, then putting it in a jig while it was still hot. This works only if you can get the wire back out after its cooled down. Liquid dish soap turned out to be the best solution. Later on I read a technique were the tube is filled with sand, capped on both ends and then bent. Seems like it should work, but I haven't tried it yet. The rest of it was built basically like the F/C headers.

My next try will probably be a crazy set of collectors for the 34' coupe. The sand filled tube idea might work well in this situation.

Funny Car...building the chassis

The chassis was scaled up from a 1/16 scale kit and was built very much like a real one. The front bottom frame rails were my starting point, and everything else was built using this as my reference. The bottom rails were laid first using shims to get the correct angle on the back half. The top rails were built next using jigs and shims to keep everything square, straight and true. Once these were built, all the vertical and angled braces were added. The jigs were kept in place until the entire chassis was completed, this is important to keep from ending up with a twisted or warped structure.

My technique for joining all the pieces is very simple but quite effective. Each piece is cut to length, then a small radius is sanded on the ends to make for a tight fitting joint, just as if they were going to be welded. Satisfied with the fit, each piece is glued in place using 5 min. epoxy. This type of glue is very strong but has minimal penetration especially with hardwood. After all the bracing is added, each joint is drilled and pegged with 1/8" dowel rod. This makes for a very strong joint. It's very important to keep the chassis in the jig until this final step is completed.

The cage and rear hoop were added last. I'm asked quite often how do I bend dowel rod?.......my usual response is "with a wood bender"!!!........If you were to think about it for a few minutes, you would realize it's quite simple really. Each piece is cut out of flat stock of the appropriate thickness and then shaped to match the dowel rod. I might also add that grain direction is important here to keep structural integrity. On the larger radius's, three pieces were butt glued running the grain lengthwise to avoid a tight curve that is cross grain with not much strength.

After the frame was completed, it was removed from the jig and all joints were reinforced with epoxy. Final finishing is quite time consuming. Every joint was ground, and then minor fill work with automotive bondo to smooth all the seams together. After all the fill work is done, prime and paint is done just like metal would be finished. Final paint was done using automotive basecoat/clearcoat. The finished frame was well beyond my expectations, and it looks just like a miniature steel chassis..........

now........where's my wood bender at??..........