Well, Sandy has come and gone now, and Monocoque Metalworks made it through unscathed. We lost power for only 4 hours, and that was in the evening, so production in the shop kept on going without a hitch. I hope that everyone else north of here who did not fare so well in the storm will be able to get things cleaned up and their lives back to normal as soon as possible – I will certainly have them in my thoughts.
On Saturday, they were hyping this up quite a bit (Thank God!), and so I took the time to stuff all of the E-Type stuff inside the new shop. Actually, almost all of it was already inside, but I also made some space in the old shop so I could work during all of the rain.
Once the storm started, I just snuggled up in the shop and worked on some bonnets and watched CNN and the Weather Channel, while Janie tried to keep the kids from killing each other while they were all cooped up in the house for several days.
So here is a picture of 8 E-Types crammed into a 3-car garage, and me converting a Series 1.5 bonnet to covered headlamps during the storm of the century. Enjoy!
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- This is insane, I know… And the crazy part is that there is one in the rotisserie in the other shop, one in the blasting booth, and FIVE more at the warehouse! There are also 4 bonnets on the shelf, 3 disassembled in the other shop, and TONS of bonnet parts everywhere else – there are 13 center sections upstairs! The coupes in the front of the photo are cars that we have rescued lately, and these and a few more E-Type projects will be available for restoration soon! After I took this photo, I pulled a 9th car into here before closing things up – a 1919 Dodge roadster that the kids and I use to bop around the neighborhood on Sunday afternoons.
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- I worked all day Sunday because it was raining already, and I expected the power to be out for several days, so I figured I would get as much work in this week as I could before that happened! Thee are restored Series 1.5 bonnet panels from earlier this Summer.
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- Space issues during the storm forced me to get creative, so I piled several blankets on the shear to make a padded work stand, and then set these panels on there. It was GREAT! The height and the positioning was PERFECT, and I’ll be doing it right here like this from now on!
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- Here’s my cozy little hide-out from Sandy – which you can see up on the TV screen in the background.
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- Step 1 is to lay on our flxible shape patterns and mark the 1/4″ oversize hole.
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- Next, we fine tune the flanges and clamp them in from underneath, making sure that exactly 1/4″ is protruding beyond the cut. If you purchase these flanges and plan to do the work yourself, many customers just elect to MIG them into place right here “underlapped”, and that does work very well – and is the safest, best bet for the home restorer…
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- …however, here, we then mark the flange, cut it down, and carefully tack it into place along its entire length, taking great care to make sure the seam is tight, and level. You can’t take too much care here, and this is by far the most time consuming part of the task.
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- In this shot, you can see that we have moved on to the next flange, but that the tacks on the lower flange have been sanded flush. This makes the TIG welding of the entire seam much more uniform.
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- Next, we move on to the other side, and have already marked and cut the hole, and sanded it so that the paint does not contaminate our welds.
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- One flange tacked into place…
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- Here this one has been marked and cut, and is clamped into place flush, and ready for tacking with the MIG.
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- She looks done here, but she’s not. All of the flanges are now positioned and tacked, and ready to be welded along the entire seam with the TIG.
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- Here, we’ve carefully TIG welded the entire seam – walking a fine line between penetration, warpage, and blow-through…
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- Welded and sanded flush – a perfect Series 1!
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- The other side is just as nice, and once we hit this with etch primer again, it will be indistinguishable froma Series 1 bonnet!
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- NOW she’s all done!
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- Taking a last look before turning in for the night. Sandy is getting closer now (see the TV again…), and it’s time for a good night’s sleep on Sunday night because it might be the last for a while!
