Body Wood

[BillCNC]

Hey All,

It was time to redo the top and when doing so, I noticed the headliner was never attached to the bows without the cardboard strips so they were tearing at the staples so out it comes as well. The ball keeps rolling down hill and I noticed my left and right side headers were rotted at the nail line so out they came. Those pieces were not even attached to the header as the tongue sticking into the header as not there. Also the right side was broken in the middle were it thins down at the steel bow attachment point.

Anyhow I made some new ones from some Honduran Mahogany I had milled and laying around for the last 13 years. These were pieces left over from building a few racing hydroplanes and were milled to .5" and .75" So I laminated 4 pieces to make each one. I still need to replace the wood around the back window but I used all my secret stash of Mahogany and was wondering what wood you folks use?

I live in the SoCal desert so selection of finding wood is Home Depot and Lowe's so I'm thinking of going to one of those and picking up some poplar, ... your thoughts? I wish I had more Mahogany left over because of it's anti fungal properties.

Regards
Bill

 

[wrndln]

All three of my wood kits from Classic Wood in NC were made of white ash. I believe From my reading, Ford used various hardwoods in model A's including oak, maple, ash, hickory, birch, etc that he had in his forest in MI. As long as the wood is hardwood, I think you would be fine.
Rusty Nelson

 

[BillCNC]

Hi Rusty,

I thought about buying a kit, but The only wood needing to be replaces was the side headers and the wood bordering the rear window so I couldn't justify the cost of the kit an went with making them myself.

How well did the kit wood fit in the cars and what was the quality of the wood like?

Regards
Bill

 

[wrndln]

I installed a Classic Wood kit in my 28 special coupe several years ago. A special coupe has more wood in the top rear area than a std coupe. There is a wood framework that 5 preformed pieces of sheetmetal are screwed and nailed to - see picture attached. The kit needed a lot of tweaking to fit together correctly. However, even though I have done a fair amount of woodworking, I don't think I could have made some of the complicated compound curved pieces in the kit, like the header. Many of the hole were not in the right places, but I plugged them and drilled new holes. It would have been better if the kit didn't have any holes drilled.


As far as the 29 phaeton wood kit I installed from Classic Wood, it was little better than the coupe's, mainly because it had much less wood in the body. The curved beltrail wood in the front and backseat area were a real headache. They were not made correctly and broke when I tried to install them, as they cut the curved ends with the grain mostly crosswise. Ford steam bent the beltrail wood like I ended up doing - see pictures. I used a wallpaper steamer and PVC pipe to steam bend the wood.



As for my 29 CCPU, I did buy a top wood kit from Classic. It was much the same as the other two kits. It need a fair amount of modifications. And like the other two kits, I probably couldn't make some of the complicated wood pieces. I made some of the body wood myself, but in a CCPU, there isn't that much.


It sounds like you have some woodworking experience and if so, I think you can made the wood pieces you are referring to for your A with minimal problems.

Hope this help.
Rusty Nelson

 

[BButturff]

I live in the SoCal desert so selection of finding wood is Home Depot and Lowe's so I'm thinking of going to one of those and picking up some poplar, ... your thoughts? I wish I had more Mahogany left over because of it's anti fungal properties.
Bill

Hi Bill,

While poplar is classified as a hardwood it isn't very hard. Normally it would fall between pine and oak. However, I have used some poplar that was actually softer than pine. For what it's worth, I would use walnut. It's a tough hardwood of medium density, with moderate bending and crushing strengths, and low stiffness. It also has good steam-bending qualities.

Good luck,
Bruce