#also $6 a month for one channel's worth of stuff is a bit steep

[writedreamlie]

Guys I think most of us are missing the point here.

The lads have every right to make this move, and if they want to focus on more expensive content, then as creators, they should be able to do that. I agree that this is sudden and putting their existing stuff behind a paywall is a bit shit, but having read so many of the comments already, I think a large number of us need to come to terms with the fact that...

Watcher isn't for us anymore.

Like, all the fancy new stuff they've been putting in more recent seasons has actually been a little much for me for a while now. I was never here for higher production value. But I stuck around for the bits I still loved and was excited to see what came next.

If this is the next step in their evolution, I say more power to them. They clearly have a vision for what they want to become! But I was a Watcher 1.0 fan. Watcher 2.0 is for someone, it just isn't for me.

[itsworn]

How to build your own cast aluminum windshield frame

Kustoms are all about styling- taking an original body, chopping it up, and redesigning it to fit the vision in your head. That is one of the things that makes building cars so much fun, you never know what you are going to see next. When you have an Art Deco model such as this 1941 Lincoln Continental, much of the original styling is already beautiful, just a few tweaks here and there to make it yours. However, there is one area that was a major failure, and that is the windshield frame. Unlike the rest of the body, which has big bold curves and swoopy lines, the windshield frame is just plain and boring. In all honesty, it looks like it belongs on a VW Thing or a Jeep as opposed to one the most beautiful Art Deco production cars.

The reality is that everything above the door line is wrong on this car- the windshield and the convertible top. The top is being changed out for a hand-built Carson style top, but what about that windshield frame? It is far too flat and square to be left as is. We could try to modify the cast iron frame, but it would still be a little too upright, and altering the angle would mess with the side windows. What we want is a swoopy frame that evokes the styling of the 1930s coupes, otherwise known as a “DuVall” style windshield. We just have to build it.

There are a couple of ways these things are done. We could spend months and months trying to hammer-form sheet metal into the look we want, which an expert metal craftsman can handle, but we simply are not that skilled with a hammer and dolly. We could search for a car in the salvage yards to cut up and modify into something that resembled what we want, or we can start over from scratch and build a design that matches our ideas and doesn’t break the bank. We are going to cast our own windshield frame.

OK, so technically, we are not casting in-house, that will be handled by a small local foundry that specializes in small production parts. We are designing and building the pattern for the mold. The pattern is the form that is used to make the mold itself. There are some critical features that you must pay attention to when laying out a part that is going to be cast, namely drafts and undercuts. Draft is the angle of all sides when the part is laying in the casting position (how it will be sitting when poured). The vertical surfaces must have at least a 2-degree draft, and the base must be wider than the top. This helps aid in the release of the part. The other issue to be aware of are the undercuts. On some parts, like our frame, this simply can’t be avoided. In order to get the part to fit the car, there are going to be undercuts. This is alleviated through a two-part mold, and a removable casting base called a “follower” that allows the top side to be formed, then the base is removed so that the other half of the casting mold can be formed.

The bulk of the work on this project is done with MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard) and body filler. The design and build process is time consuming, but it is well worth the effort. Using the original frame as a guide, we built a rough copy from MDF, specifically the angle of the frame relative to the door glass and the tails that run into the door jambs. Everything else will be altered.

We built the frame using superglue and brad nails. You want to build the frame base as sturdy as possible, as you will be removing and installing the piece numerous times. The original glass was angled at 56-degrees. We don’t want to chop it, the original height is about right, but that angle is too steep, so we pulled the base of the glass forward 2.5 inches, which added 6 degrees to the rake of the glass (50 degrees total rake). In order for the glass to be at the same height off the cowl, the glass will need to be lengthened 1 inch, so this is sort of an “anti-chop.” We built an analog for the glass itself with ¼-inch Masonite, then used that to create the actual glass surround, which was made with 5/8-inch MDF. Using super glue and wood blocks, this piece was positioned and glued into place.

Once the skeleton was built, the styling begins. You can fill in the gaps and make a blocky frame, or go crazy and make everything swoopy. We opted for the latter. For this part of the process, we used a combination of body fillers, including Duraglass, which is fiberglass reinforced body filler, and standard lightweight body filler. The Duraglass is used as the base. This stuff can be applied thicker without worrying about cracking, and it is very strong.

Once the design was completed, the frame was prepped for casting and sent to the foundry. The casting process took about a month. The foundry built a casting frame called a flask, and used a process called bonded sand casting. Unlike green sand, which is fine sand mixed with oil to keep it in shape, bonded sand hardens like concrete. This helps reduce part shrinkage, because the cooling metal can’t collapse the walls of the mold. A green sand mold is cheaper, but a large, thin part like this is bound to shrink heavily and warp, which will render the final part unusable. Bonded sand cuts the shrink factor down considerably. Typical aluminum casting shrinks 1.5” over every surface, which means, for a part like ours, it could shrink as much as an inch over the width. However, that calculation only works for solid parts, and while the frame is 51” long, it is less than 2” thick. This makes any shrinkage calculation very difficult. In our project, the final shrinkage was less than 0.9 percent, which is much better than the estimates. The base shrunk ½-inch overall, which required some grinding and clearance work after the casting was complete, but that was going to be required anyway. If we were to cast a second frame, we could rectify the shrinkage so that the finished cast part would be match to the original pattern’s dimensions.

The final part looks incredible, fits the car and has the exact styling we were after. Our original plan was to polish the frame, but there were some minor surface imperfections that showed up during the polishing process that we couldn’t live with, so we ended up filling the pits with epoxy, priming, painting and using a silver nitrate spray process that yielded the polished aluminum look we were after. Chrome plating was also an option, but the $3,000 price tag was a little more than we wanted to spend. We spent $1,600 on the casting, and additional pieces could be cast for about $1,100. A second casting would most likely have fixed the surface finish issues, but we were able to get the look we wanted, so we stuck with the initial casting.

The original windshield is plain and boring. It has no style and does not fit the rest of the body. Time for it to go.

We removed the frame and laid it out on some strips of MDF, and then traced the shape onto the boards.

The cowl piece has to match the original frame, so we measured the original and transferred that to the new base cowl piece. Even a half of a degree off can wreck the fitment to the door glass.

The frame has supports that run through the door hinges on the cowl, we recreated those with strips of MDF and shaped it to match.

The frame base was laid up with notched panels. This adds strength to the overall piece.

The new base matches the original angle and fits the cowl well.

We created a pattern for the glass and then marked a board with the shape. The line in the middle is where the wood gets recessed with a router and a rabbet bit.

This becomes the windshield frame glass form. We added ¾-inch around the glass pattern for a reveal.

Keeping the top of the glass in the same position as the factory frame, we set the base forward about 2.5-inches, which gave us the 50-degree rake we were after.

Once the base skeleton was formed, we started layering on the filler. This is all Duraglass for strength. We used masking tape on these voids, placed on the inside of the frame to keep the filler from falling out of the skeleton. We will bodywork the interior frame later. This process took several days to get the look just right.

The interior of the frame is pretty simple, You can see the glass channel as well.

Once the filler work has been roughed in with 36-grit sand paper, we needed to make sure the two sides were symmetrical. Lots of measuring and note taking is involved with this project.

We used a piece of poster board to mark the shape of each side, and then made a pattern that will be used on both sides. The pattern must be perfect; any imperfection will be present in the final part.

The pattern is Masonite, and we placed it on either side of the frame, removing and adding material where necessary.

At this point, we also installed the dash and started bodyworking this area to make sure the frame looks good from inside as well.

The follower board was made with a sheet of MDF and a wood and Bondo structure that fits tight up against the pattern, providing the draft needed and ensuring no sand will find its way in the undercut area.

Metal Dynamics in Tulsa, OK handled the casting. They built a custom flask for this project, and it will be saved for us if we ever need to make another frame. The sand is packed by hand while the table vibrates to help it settle. Then they flipped the flask, removed the follower, and packed the other side.

This is what the raw casting looks like. The large round pieces are the sprues (where the molten aluminum is poured) and the long stem is the vent, which allows the hot gasses to escape the mold as it is poured. This gets removed with a bandsaw.

Once we got the casting back, it has a mildly rough finish. We started trimming and shaping the cowl area to accommodate the shrinkage. The blue tint is called Dykem, it is a fast-drying machinist dye the makes it easy to scribe lines and to see where you need to remove material. Think of it as guide coat for machining.

The door jamb tails had to be removed for casting. It would nearly impossible to sand-cast the frame with them intact. This means we have to recreate them in aluminum after the fact. Using some plate aluminum, we cut it to rough size and shape, and then used a torch to heat and bend it in the shop press, using the original tails as a guide. We then had the tails TIG welded to the frame.

Our new windshield frame looks so much better than the factory piece, it really adds to the Art Deco styling, and brings that 30s-40s era coupe look and feel to the car. Our favorite part is how the peaks match the fenders and hood.

The last step was finishing. You can finish your part anyway you choose. We wanted something between polished and brushed aluminum, and the silver nitrate process, Alsa Easy-Chrome, did the trick. It looked amazing in a brushed finish, but there are a few pits in the surface, so we had to go another direction.

The post How to build your own cast aluminum windshield frame appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network https://www.hotrod.com/articles/build-cast-aluminum-windshield-frame/ via IFTTT