cheer everyone.
12/11/2011
I've been concentrating on the guttering since the last update. The last time i wrote i had just tacked the front gutter in place. Continuing from the front i went along the passengers side.
I've tried to keep the gutter sticking out 10mm from underneath. I'm not being too critical, +/- a couple of mm wont hurt and probably keep it more authentic looking.
You can see that i actually had to cut the back angle off the guttering. It turns out that I should have had 2 different angles of guttering made up but , well, i had already spent £85 on this stuff so lets not waste it eh. It wont affect the strength or anything. It just meant i had to be more careful about the angle it laid at.
The bits above the doors were a little more awkward. The roof and guttering curve yet the door is actually flat. So at the widest point you actually see about 18mm of guttering. I couldn't fit the doors as i have the braces welded in place. I drilled 2 screws into the body of the van and tied a bit of string taught so had a straight edge to substitute for the door frame.
I then decided to make a curved piece to join the front and side together. It went easier than i thought and it was another good use of the shrinker/stretcher i bought.
Like i said earlier, i had to cut the back edge of the guttering. To help with making sure it would stay at the right angle now i tacked a piece of 12mm Square bar to the body and clamped the gutter to it. That way i could tack it and know it wouldn't distort.
I made my way to the rear. The rear gutter will actually stick out 15mm from the doors. Which isn't stock but i think it looks ok none the less.
Another corner piece.
Then the last piece to join the side to the rear.
Another corner piece shrunk to shape.
If you were wondering how i managed to get the curved sections this is what i done.
First i got a piece of thin card (tesco sell them in the art section quite cheaply) and traced the curve and cut it out to match.
Then i measured 10mm outwards and drew the curve. Ikea is a good source of free pencils ;)
Cut a small section of guttering.
Use the shrinking jaws to make the curve.
Then check it everynow and then with the template until you get it near enough bang-on.
After a little tweak, adjusting and cutting you end up with a corner piece ready to be tacked on.
Its been a little tricky trying to join the sections together to make it look like on piece without kinks.
Last few section to tack on the drivers side.
And were done. The whole guttering tacked into place, yey!
Looking slightly different to how it was when i bought it. I like looking through my old photos to see how far ive came along.
Now i get to start another tedious task of welding up the slits i made to make the guttering more flexible. I cut every 50mm on the gutter and there is roughly 10 metres of guttering so that is nearly 200 slits to now weld up, not so yey.
This is how I am planning to do it without making more work for myself and to hopefully not distort the guttering much.
Using the old copper plate trick again i experimented on a little bit. I cut a piece of polished copper and clamped it into place underneath a slit.
Then used the Tig welder to fill in the gap.
As the mild steel doesn't stick to the copper it leaves it flush underneath, the bit that everyone will see. this is exactly how it looked once i took the copper off, doesn't even need ground down. The good thing about the copper is it acts a bit like a heat sink too so it should hopefully help to keep the distortion down.
I continued on for about another foot. Stitch welding the gutter to the body as well
After a little tidy up with the grinder and a light coat of etch primer i got this, not bad. It added a lot of strength back into the gutter too.
It had moved slightly but il wait until its all welded in place before i mess around neating it up with the hammer and dollys. Hopefully it wont take me too long to get through the welding then i can make a start on the roof panel.
