Wooden Morgan: 1950 Drop Head Coupe

This project's origins go back three or four years when Fred posted this set of drawings on the emog DG.  I had been debating doing this instead when I did the Three Wheeler.

First step was to work up a plan of attack, parts of which will probably change once the tools start to bite into the wood.  This will be my first attempt at making disk wheels and at doing wood inlay. (To put in the chrome strips along the sides and along the bonnet hinge.)  My biggest worry is the radiator.  I like the look of the ones with the grill running across the top and bottom tanks;

which means doing some carving after cutting the gaps and gluing little pieces back in to make the lower tank.


Second step was to resize the images to be in scale with the Plus 8 model, i.e. a 2 inch (scale) shorter wheel base.  Then get them printed to size.  The printer programming kept shrinking the top and side views, even though I was using legal size paper.  Finally got them by printing front part and rear part of each and taping them together.

I have assembled my materials;

using the black walnut and hop hornbeam motif as used for the other models.  One day I will drop in to see these people:
http://www.exotic-woods.com/index.html
and maybe try a two-tone model with Bloodwood for the body and African Blackwood wings.  Meanwhile I have a ton of black walnut to use, (OK not quite a ton but a few hundred pounds.)

The 2x4s will not be in the final product but will become a sacrificial block used to keep the pieces cut from the black walnut block square while they are worked.

Yesterday and today I made the mark-out templates from acrylic scraps;

Next job will be to build the 2x4 block then get it and the black walnut block squared and dimensioned.  Hmm, do I spring for a bench-top planer?  Or check with Al to see if I can use his.