And so it begins................................
It is well documented in my build thread that I met Stuart Smith the proprietor of Lone Star Body Shop after his very generous offer to roll some beads in my quarter panels for me. I remember the first time I ever spoke to him on the phone arranging this session I remarked that I was keen to see his shop. His response was…….Yeh, it is just a workshop mate.
When I eventually ventured down to see him, I walked through a single door that was open to meet him and was blown away by some of his stuff – he just has heaps of cool car stuff.
I already thought that Stuart was a regular contributor to the forum but after a few hours I asked why he didn’t post more as he seemed to have an endless trail of worthwhile content. Basically he is very very busy and by nature a bit humble – not two really good traits for posting on an internet forum. The beads in my quarter panels are almost complete and as it turns out, we have become friends.
After much persuasion he sort of agreed to let me post some of his stuff.
Please be sympathetic with your comments as he doesn’t need to let me do this and from my perspective I am posting another guy’s work so I may make mistakes along the way.
Stuart has a couple of employees that work with him being Gavin (Cords) and Steve and I have encouraged all three to contribute comments once I get the ball rolling. Both Gavin and Steve are ‘car guys’ and gun metal men in their own right.
My plan is to have this thread that covers ‘Jobs in the Shop’ and I will start several others that are more specific eg Pullmax thread – from commissioning to tooling. There seems to be from my observations that people on here are interested in all this type of content??
Anyway, enough waffle………………where to start??
1936 Ford Coupe Ute
Stuart was phoned by a guy name Gabe to rebuild the body of his ute after another body shop sat on it without starting it for months – perhaps it was a bit outside his capabilities. Gabe saw Stuart’s hotrod at Motorex and the rest is history. It should be said that there are many jobs on the go at Lone Star but this job was started mid January 2012 and has progressed at a very fast pace.
The scope of works entailed getting the body to Stage One which was to square up the cab, fabricate a sub structure, quarter panels and tailgate.
From what I can gather the ute had sat in a river bed for many years and looked pretty far gone. It had been picked over very thoroughly and there was a fair bit of damage from when the last parts were picked from it. Being out in the bush people must have just ripped the parts off it. There was a lot of consequential damage from the ute having been picked over
Here is the ute on the trailer as it arrived at the shop - many people commented that it was beyond saving
It was wheeled inside and mounted on a rotisserie to start to assess what was usable
This is the chassis the ute came in on - as the build progressed this chassis was deemed to rusty to use.
The rusty panels were removed and some structure laid to get some measurements off
Lots of damage had to be fixed on the doors and cab before the build could progress too much further. The repairs had to be made to allow the doors to be hung and gapped.
At this stage the cab was bead blasted and treated to a coat of epoxy and repairs begun
Layer by layer the rusty panels inside the footwell were removed and new replacement panels were fabricated.
A new lower cowl panel was needed. A template was made and a panel cut out and shaped. A new die was made for the Pullmax to form the bead that matches the one that runs along the bottom of the door.
Here is Stuart tigging the replacement panel in - pulsed tig generates approx 60% of the heat of oxy to minimise distortion
The B pillar was also restored at this point
Here is Stuart forming the sill panels on the English wheel using a tipping wheel and eurathane lower anvil
Stuart opted to use double skinned sheet metal panel to minimise Noise Vibration Harshness. The bulkhead skin that faces the cabin had radial beads formed from the transmission hump
