One of the last details on the 911 Targa restoration project is to bolt on the newly refinished Fuchs alloy wheels. I sent these to a specialist who uses the same anodizing and paint process that was used from new. I’m really pleased with how they look because the gloss of both the aluminum and black paint is just right, not over polished.

Refinish a Porsche FUCHS alloy wheel

This is so cool, it must be some sort of World War II Aircraft Manufacturing technique for welding aluminum by smashing it together that was used for cars. This trunk lid was made by Carrozzeria Touring in the late 1940′s and as much as I curse the way they build cars, this is some of the most amazing craftsmanship I have seen. Since it isn’t adding any new material its keeps the panel very light and super strong and without the heat of welding, the panel doesn’t warp and distort. I’m guessing that the force of smashing the two aluminum pieces together in a focused area causes enough heat to melt and stick them tight.

Welding aluminum with a punch

Aluminum welding technique

I’d like to see other examples of this attachment procedure and find out what it’s called.

Things are coming along nicely on the 1950 Ferrari 166 Touring Berlinetta, here you can see the dashboard lining up nicely with the upper door panels and the windshield glass fitted with new mahogany tack strips installed. All around the body openings are hand whittled wooden strips to jamb the glass into place while providing an area to tack the headliner and upholstery. Hidden under the painted aluminum trim on the top of the door is a tack strip to which the leather door panel upholstery is attached . Near the rear vent windows, the tack strips secure the headliner on the top half and the rear package shelf leather to the bottom half. Unfortunately these tack strips are in channels around the glass openings which means they are sitting in pools of water every time the car is washed or driven in the rain so all of the strips were rotten to dust.

Six tack strips secure the front windshield, two on top, two on the bottom and two on the sides. These dog bone strips were in decent shape because they are located on the sides and didn’t spend much time bathing/rotting in water but since they are so thin, the tacks securing the headliner caused them to splinter and blow apart. They are totally different pieces left to right and had to be hand shaped for 6 hours to make fit correctly. This is a lesson in how not to build a car!! They don’t make them like they used to… thank god!

Mahogany Tack strip

Lining up Dash Ferrari

Old Sheet metal Ferrari

Grille Ferrari Classic

This is the body that was on the Ferrari 212 that we located in a barn 5 years ago. Eben is in the building next door getting this body built up so we can paint it as a static display. Most of the aluminum is foil thin and work hardened but the objective is to save as much of the original material as possible and Eben has been successful in doing this.

Brass is a pain in the neck to weld, it doesn’t give you any clues as to its melting point like other metals. Steel gets shiny and looks like flowing liquid while aluminum gets super shiny and puffs up slightly which tells you when you can add the filler rod.

Brass just gets dark so you have to poke the area with the filler rod and hope it sticks even though it often just spatters and makes a mess. Unlike aluminum or steel, it is easy to build up brass on an edge of sheet metal like I am doing in these photos. What I found is that you have to keep the material extra clean with a stainless steel brush and glass bead blasting it when the piece gets black and nasty.

These photos are of little trim pieces on a Ferrari 166 Touring bodied Berlinetta that I am restoring. These pieces didn’t fit well from new,  I think my 6 year old daughter could have made them fit better. I have spent lots time welding on new material and filing it down to fit around the trim and re-locate the holes so the screws actually thread into something.

The reason Touring used brass is because it takes chrome nicely without any extra material like nickel or copper and is relatively easy to shape.

Brass Heli-arc

Tungston Inert Gas Brass

Brass trim welded and fitting

When we needed a new camera last year, I asked Johanne to get us a new “bomber” camera and she came back with a Canon D10 which is designed to take the shock of dropped and handle the everyday abuse of our shop. It turns out that the camera can also shoot under water! I took these photos of Homer’s newly crafted fish under water, notice the trout that are swimming up next to the shiny painted fish!

Homer is really enjoying making these fish and would like to sell them so if you are interested in purchasing one let me know and I can connect you with Homer

Fish real and fake

Underwater fish

A customer swung by with the pictured Testarossa hood asking if we could repair it. We said we’d check it out, and he asked for a very rough ballpark estimate of what it could run – you know, is it $20 dollars or twenty-thousand? Initially we said it’d be a few grand, but when Eben saw it, his experience as the panel beater and sculptor rang true, with an estimate of about $5k to make it perfect again. The aluminum can only be worked so much, and new material would have to be welded in.

It was a better deal to just replace it with a used panel and let the owner keep the crushed one as a souvenir – you may ask, how’d he do it? The guy he bought it from did.