[1] The perspective makes...
[1] The perspective makes the panel look a lot bigger than the dash, but it still won’t fit in the dash shape. The center needs to drop down to match.
One of my favorite books happens to be one of the most specific. It also has one of the most economical titles: Dashboards.
It’s hardly more than a picture book, but boy, what a piece. In it, photographer David Holland examines some of the most significant cars in the world, not by their bodies but by their dashboards. As Formula 1 race car designer Gordon Murray explains in his foreword, the dashboard—probably the single most complex part of a car until recent years—represents a vehicle in the most concise terms. And the book showcases a range of examples, from the modesty of the Model T and its lonely ammeter to the ornate complexity of the panel in a ’26 Blower Bentley. One glance of each dashboard reveals the function of its vehicle: the Ford, frugal utility; the Bentley, speed.
[2] Woolery began by tracing...
[2] Woolery began by tracing the existing dash profile on a sheet of butcher paper.
Bentley may be far afield for most of us but the cars we build borrow from both camps: We’re essentially Bentley buffs on a Ford budget. And whether or not we know it, our dashboards also reveal the way we feel about our cars. A flat dash adorned with flavor-of-the-month gauges speaks volumes of a car’s owner.
Mike Bach feels pretty passionately about his latest car, a ’33 roadster. Though he got it as a really nice, well-crafted car, he asked Marshall Woolery at Thun Field Rod & Custom to update it. Actually, he asked him to backdate it with a stock chassis and then modify it to post-war standards. He said he thought it natural for the car to have a dash that represented its new soul. Gauge guru Pat Swanson had just the ticket: authentic Stewart-Warner winged-logo gauges in a ’31 Cadillac panel.
[3] He also traced the panel...
[3] He also traced the panel on another piece of paper.
It isn’t easy to change a Model 40 dash to accommodate any panel, much less one from a luxury car. Unlike a Deuce dash it isn’t basically flat across its midsection; a large raised area cleaves the dash right down its center. Worse yet, the dash narrows across the middle.
But being simple cars, Fords have pretty simple dashes. This one mounts to an arched flange on the bottom side of the cowl. So as Woolery put it, making a new dash is far easier than modifying an existing one. In his approximation it’s almost a 101-level project. As he estimated: “Anyone with half a brain in their head should be able to knock something like this out.” To prove his point he built another dash, this one for us to photograph.
[4] He then transferred the...
[4] He then transferred the panel shape to the dash template albeit slightly larger to account for the larger overall dash shape. Transferring the panel shape directly to the dash pattern would work, but Woolery wanted the dash template for another job.
It really is a straightforward process. He used a simple hammer-forming technique: sandwich a steel sheet (16 gauge in this case) between two pieces of subfloor plywood and incrementally fold over the edges with a hammer. The process does call upon shrinking techniques to flatten the flanges where they pucker around radiuses, but even that’s a simple process explained in most beginning metalshaping books. An acetylene kit isn’t even necessary; a regular propane or MAPP-gas torch would suffice to heat the metal. In fact, this is a no-welding exercise.
The dash that emerges honors the car’s heritage and its modifications. At the very least, it beats the pants off a set of generic gauges drilled into a flat dash.
[5] Woolery then transferred...
[5] Woolery then transferred the template to plywood. You can radius the edge of the lower buck with a router to form a softer corner but the upper buck shouldn’t be any larger than the lower buck’s flat surface.
[6] Woolery measured the dash’s...
[6] Woolery measured the dash’s flanges and transferred the dimensions to steel sheet. Note that the lower flange is deeper than the top-mounting flange.
[7] The upper flange bends...
[7] The upper flange bends back and the lower flange forward with the split at the corners. He drew that cut line as well.
[8] In the absence of a band...
[8] In the absence of a band saw or electric shears use a variable-speed jigsaw. Lay the sheet on Styrofoam insulation and use a fine-tooth blade preferably at a low speed. Go slowly.
[9] With the sheetmetal clamped...
[9] With the sheetmetal clamped between the plywood bucks, Woolery folded over the lower edge with a low-crown body hammer. Work slowly; bend the whole length of the edge a few degrees at a time.
[10] He used the edge of a...
[10] He used the edge of a slapper to “cork in” the sharper return between the shapes.
[11] Folding material over...
[11] Folding material over a convex curve causes it to pucker—think of a tablecloth gathering around the edge of a round table. For the time being he hammered off the slapper to reduce the sharpness of the gather.
[12] Both flanges are actually...
[12] Both flanges are actually too long to lay flat around the edge. He ran the more gradual one through shrinking dies in his metal former. He uses a spendy Eckold but a Lancaster-style former would do the trick.
[13] The material is still...
[13] The material is still too long to lay flat even though Woolery shrunk out the pucker.
[14] Using a rule as a guide,...
[14] Using a rule as a guide, he worked the flange to a greater degree with the shrinking dies. For the time being, he shrank the flange till the face lay flat.
[15] He then flipped the bucks...
[15] He then flipped the bucks over and folded the upper flange. Note how dramatically the metal puckered as it folded over the tighter radius. We’ll address that in a few steps.
[16] The puckers around the...
[16] The puckers around the top pose another problem: the shrinking dies would flatten the tight radius. So, Woolery reverted to an older method: shrinking with heat. He heated one pucker at a time.
[17] Once the metal reached...
[17] Once the metal reached cherry red he handed off the torch, backed one side of the pucker’s base, and hammered its peak. He alternated between both sides of the pucker till it lay flat.
[18] Woolery worked each pucker...
[18] Woolery worked each pucker individually until the edge conformed to the buck. This same technique applies just as well to the gentler pucker on the dash’s bottom flange.
[19] Though the dash lay flat,...
[19] Though the dash lay flat, it still wasn’t correct; the Model 40 dash returns at the sides. Woolery marked the apex of the curve.
[20] He then ran the edge...
[20] He then ran the edge through the shrinker dies the same way he did to flatten the dash. One could pucker the edge with a tucking tool and shrink it down with heat as he did with the upper flange.
[21] Within a few pumps of...
[21] Within a few pumps of the Eckold handle the lower edge conformed perfectly to the original dash profile.
[22] The Model 40 dash’s lower...
[22] The Model 40 dash’s lower flange has a smaller one that strengthens and finishes the edge. Woolery bent it over incrementally with an adjustable wrench to about 30 or so degrees.
[23] He folded the edge to...
[23] He folded the edge to 90 degrees by hammering it over the sharp edge of a dolly. Again, he bent the whole lip a few degrees at a time to avoid distorting the edge.
[24] Even in this form the...
[24] Even in this form the dash looks like a piece of functional art. Once the dash is painted you’d swear it was original.