Lazy Days & Rowing Boats

I’ve had a few lazy days recently. Partly to give the neighbours a break but also to have a rest myself.  Work has been hectic and with all my extra curricular activities I’m about fried.

At times like this a friend in need is, as the old saying goes, a bloody nuisance.  Except this friend was Will and he did come to my rescue when I needed an old road spring to make the MKI Lipper.  What goes around comes around, so I was more than happy to have a bash at the job he brought me the other day.

Will is in to rowing and had a problem with one of the rowing clubs boats.  The oar supports had broken.  I can hear you shouting “ROLLOCKS!”, but really they were broken.

I’ve got an AC TIG welder but I’ve never used it in anger on aluminium, so I was keen to try it out.  It was an interesting exercise through which I learned a lot.

I had to grind a deep groove along the crack and build it back up with filler rod.  It took a lot more heat than I was expecting too!  I’ve done a little gas welding on thin aluminium, so fortunately I was expecting the point between “weld pool” and “puddle on the floor” to be a close one. So it wasn’t as pretty as I hoped but at least I didn’t bugger it completely.

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Once I ground it all back to shape I re-drilled the holes with a washer to keep them on centre and overall it looked pretty convincing.  So…lightweight E-Type next then?

Hard Graft

I’ve been pushing hard to get Pandora’s window frames grafted in before the inevitable bad weather.  I’m almost there now.  The frames are in and there is just a bit of metal finishing to do before I can get a coat of zinc primer on and put the windows back in.  I will still have everything below the waist line to repair before it gets painted properly but that’s not so urgent now that the thing is not filling up with water every time it rains.

To complete the internal structure I needed to clamp the components together in a confined space where welding clamps won’t fit.  I wandered down to Machine Mart in my lunch break on Friday and found some funky little clamps that were just the ticket.  I think I’ll get a lot of use out of them.

With the top rail holding the roof together I finally got to cut out the timber that was fitted between the main hoops of the structure.  Back in 1979 when Pandora was born, having two pieces of inch and a half square timber to attach your interior trim to was probably considered to be fine.  Of course if you get arse ended they’ll splinter and likely go straight through the drivers back!  So I’ve had ‘em out a bit sharpish.  I’ll fabricate some steel box sections and weld them in securely instead.

The window frames were a challenge.  Surprisingly they fitted a treat but there isn’t a lot of room to get in behind them and weld them in invisibly. Not to mention the question of a 3 foot butt weld in a very visible place along the side panel. On the middle window there was even some patching of the bead feature to do for good measure.  It took a lot of patience to TIG weld it all together, especially as it was sporadically blowing a gale too…winter is definitely coming!  I think it will all planish to a good, filler free finish though despite the odd blow hole to fix when the wind robbed me of Argon shield.  By the end of the week it will be primed and the window back in.  Then I can give my neighbours ears a rest.  Bless ‘em. I can’t believe I’ve not had a letter from the council yet!

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