The Stovebolt Site Forums Project Journals Archived Journals 1940 Chev 1/2 ton “Franken/Restomod”

June 20, 2019
Hello everyone, thank-you again for checking with the build and following along.
This week’s adventure was a lesson in patience and cumulative error. What is cumulative error you ask? Well, let me tell you…
Going through trade school I recall the topic being discussed, however I never really had a “real world” situation that illustrated the concept quite like this. What I was working on were the running board extensions, I needed to recreate the ribs formed into the step of the running board. The machine was available to me, called a pullmax, however a set of dies was not. They did have a single side die which they commonly use to “joggle” the piece to create an offset. The choice was to make a set of dies or use the joggle die, I chose to use the existing die as this was a one off project and I thought it would take less time to work the single die rather than create a multiple rib die. To get the rib spacing I started out on the 1st try using a Vernier and measuring very precisely thinking that once I figured out the spacing for the 1st rib the rest would be the same spacing as the 1st and it would just be a matter of measuring and adjusting the fence for each rib. I forgot to take into consideration the distance from one side of the die to the other and the spacing wound up being off on the land area so I was out of alignment almost immediately. I got 2 ribs in before I noticed the error and started over.
Okay lesson learned, so for the 2nd try I would check the work piece to the corresponding original more often to verify that I am staying true to the originals. What I was doing was placing the work piece up to the original and comparing the rib I was working on to the original. I NEEDED to be aligning the first rib of each part and checking that all the spacing’s were true as I progressed, as trusting my finely honed measuring skills, the error continued to accumulate with each added rib. By the time I got to the 5th of 7 ribs I was out of position by almost a full rib.
Alrighty-then! Third times the charm! I put down the Vernier and went strictly visual. It was more time consuming, as I was making constant trips back and forth from the machine to the truck to check the latest run, but in the end it proved to be the successful method. Looking at the original running boards I think the ribs are actually tapered as they run to the rear of each board. Very tough to re-create, but satisfying once it was done.
That exercise took me 2 days to get done, almost 15 hours. The consolation prize is that I think the panels from try #2 will work really great as insert panels on the doors. See the last picture in the photo montage, the interior door panels have a detail area on them which I am thinking of using the ribbed portion on. This will add an interesting visual detail to the interior and tie the exterior and interior together.
Thanks again for checking in,
Steve