Wooden Morgan: 1950 DHC - Week 3

Time to start making the block of Black Walnut look like a car.

With the templates I marked out the top and side profiles on the Black Walnut block. 
Then I located the centres for:
- the wheel wells and axle holes
- the door handles
- the petrol tank cap
- the wind screen pillars
- the tops and bottoms of the Trafficators
- 5 alignment holes on the wings to take small dowels to help when gluing on the wings.
- two rows of holes for the spare tire holder.

 Drilling the dowel holes along the bottom of the wing where it will be routered off after assembly.

The wheel wells; the rear ones need to be about 1/16" deeper than the front ones since the saw cut to remove the wing material goes through the rear wheel well but not the front one.  Thus after glue up the rear one will be shallower.

The spare tire holder, this had to be done in two stages as the drill press would not reach the required depth before it hit its stop.  I raised the table after the first set of holes were complete so the bit would stop 1/8" above the table, then slipped the work piece around the bit to compete the job.

I used the router to compete the wheel well openings.

A test fit confirms that the wheels are all square to the ground.

Minor disaster, I taped the 2x4 block on top of the Black Walnut block, marked the body outline using the template. Then started cutting the wings from the sides on the bandsaw. I stopped the cutting when the blade started to bend above the work piece.  The bottom end was not following the top and had cut a quarter inch further over to the inside.  Packed it in for the day.

Next day I checked the Black Walnut block. The cut had stopped in the radiator area so the top is clean but the bottom will have, at worst, a small cut to fill.  I put the blocks back together with the Black Walnut on top. And then spent an hour and a half setting up the band saw to make sure the blade was supported perpendicular to the table.  Afterwards I made a trial cut on the split end cut from the Black Walnut block.  The blade ran true from top to bottom of the six inch thick block.

With my toes crossed (I needed my fingers to guide the cut) I cut wings off the sides of the block.

Next, swapped the side pieces between the blocks and marked them up for the profile cuts.

Hmm, what does it look like now?

With the 2x4 block side pieces to hold the body square, I cut the sloped front for the radiator on the table saw.

Then finished shaping the front of the wings on the band saw. Cutting a vertical arc from where the wing meets the radiator out and forward to the front of the wing and a horizontal arc from the leading edge of the wing down to in front of the axle hole.  The slope on the inner side of the wings is 51 degrees but my band saw only tilts to 45 degrees.  I made up a tilted table top jig from a left over piece from an old project and a scrap of 2x4.

Lined up the band saw tilt and cut half way through the jig cutting high enough to let the wing pieces tilt as needed.

Taped it down and cut a roughly "D" shaped piece of 3/4" thick softwood to use as a rest for the work piece.

The front cut rotates around the axle hole.  A second pass keeping the work piece touching the support block at the saw blade smooths the cut surface.

I chiseled the points off the sides of the slot for the spare wheels and sanded them with the 1/2" drum sander on the drill press.
   
After some rasp work to take out the saw marks on the body and wings and sanding with 80 grit we have:

Next job will be shaping the top of the bonnet.