07-02-2019, 09:07 PM
The Chassis has now been blast cleaned and painted prior to assembly. I had a "Hot riveting party" in the garage last weekend, we actually rivetted two chassis, my '26 Top Hat (in red lead) and a 1929 chummy (posing in grey etch primer). Once we had perfected the technique, one chassis took about 3 hours to rivet together.
Here is the "A Team" placing the cross-shaft brackets on the '26 chassis:
The technique we used was:
1) Place rivet into hole, with plenty of bolts to secure alignment of the pieces being rivetted. Put the head of the rivet securely on the lower snap, holding the chassis in alignment as necessary.
2) Heat the rivet with the oxy-acetylene until orange hot. Getting the lower part of the rivet, where it goes through the chassis hot enough was the challenge.
3) Hammer with an SDS drill with a specially made bit as the top snap to form the head.
4) Reheat rivet and repeat. The rivets cool quickly although the snaps get mighty hot!
5) Finally, finish with a reheat and a hand snap wielded with a 4lb lump hammer to finally form the head and close the joint.
Step 2 above:
And step 3:
Next job is to weld some bracing onto the top of the cross shaft brackets (back to the front crossmember) and then wire brush the areas of burnt paint and apply some more red oxide, finally finishing in black chassis paint.
Here is the "A Team" placing the cross-shaft brackets on the '26 chassis:
The technique we used was:
1) Place rivet into hole, with plenty of bolts to secure alignment of the pieces being rivetted. Put the head of the rivet securely on the lower snap, holding the chassis in alignment as necessary.
2) Heat the rivet with the oxy-acetylene until orange hot. Getting the lower part of the rivet, where it goes through the chassis hot enough was the challenge.
3) Hammer with an SDS drill with a specially made bit as the top snap to form the head.
4) Reheat rivet and repeat. The rivets cool quickly although the snaps get mighty hot!
5) Finally, finish with a reheat and a hand snap wielded with a 4lb lump hammer to finally form the head and close the joint.
Step 2 above:
And step 3:
Next job is to weld some bracing onto the top of the cross shaft brackets (back to the front crossmember) and then wire brush the areas of burnt paint and apply some more red oxide, finally finishing in black chassis paint.