The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Weird question for you....

As the subject states here is a weird request that I don't think any here would have and answer to. Background: my truck's in the shop getting the bodywork and paint done, the tailgate is pretty much shot, but the guy can re-weld the middle panel, fix up the top and bottom and is planning to weld a plain panel over the middle section where it used to say Chevrolet (this section is BEYOND repair). I was tipping a few brown ones with a friend of mine tonight who own's a laser fabrication company and said that he could make stainless letters for me to weld on to the panel. Here's the cost... one night of tipping beers on me and he will program the letters and cut them for me.

Now to the request that I'm sure no-one can help me with but worth the shot.... I was wondering if anyone had anything similar made and had the corel/autocad designs for this already programmed in to someone's system (YEAH RIGHT).

Next question where I might be able to help other is, would anyone else be interested in CHEVROLET cut out in seperate stainless stell letters? I'll ask what he'd charge for non-20 year friends and look into the shipping that would be involved if more people are in this predicament or can find other uses for such letters.

Now to find a good picture/printout of the original CHEVROLET lettering that he can copy (other than taking my old tailgate in to him).

Lorne.

P.S.
How bad (in your opinion) would my truck look in the teal green shade that some (including mine) of the newer 88-9x Chevy/GMC's came in? I really like the colour of my 93 GMC 4x4 ext cab and so does the wife, so I was toying with the idea of going same shade with the '52 as I'm not currently doing a ground up anyways....

Why don't you just buy a repop or good used tailgate? It would probably cost a lot less than all that work by your bodyman.

A very valid question Panel, but the way this guy is doing the truck and his pricing for parts/labour, it wouldn't lower the price I'm paying for the project and would cost me for the repop (or big hunt for original) tailgate. That's why I came up with the stainless lettering to be spot welded onto the work that he is already doing.

Mb - buy a $10 Chevrolet pickup tailgate decal and use that as the template for the letters. Will give you the proper size, spacing etc.

How are you going to weld stainless steel to normal steel?? I don't believe it will work. If you spot weld them and it does stick, won't you have a burn spot on the letter? If you decide to polish the letters and glue them on, why not buy one of the tailgate decals in chrome letters?

If you take a good internet or computer picture of the letters, get a raster image, & vectorize it, then you can take that directly to autocadd, explode it, and clean it up. Then you can use that in your machine to produce the letters. Not really too hard, just sounds bad.

An idea - you could weld some sort of clips to the back of the letters, then drill holes in the tailgate to hold them, like trim pieces.

Lorne-GLOO those letters on AFTER your fella paints the gate. some type of moulding adhesive would work...or HEY better yet-grab some of the thin 3M double faced tape used to adhere emblems/trim on new cars. That would work like a charm.

Oh yeah, the teal colour? GO FOR IT!! It's your truck and iff'n you (and wifey) like the colour, then why not.

Regards,
Wannabe

Well, I talked to the bodywork guy and he agrees with you Wannabe, I'll get the letters made and he will use the body panel glue to put them on the painted panel.... I think it'll look ok, not original, but better than a plain panel there. As for the teal paint, I think I've flopped back to Forester Green but in a metallic finish.

Lorne
p.s.
I've moved my page to a permanent webspace with my isp, feel free to check it out.
New Web page, no more geosh*ties