In case you haven't figured it out by now, here at R&C we dig traditional customs. Sure, those whiz-bang, super-smooth-rolling tributes to fiberglass and billet aluminum are cool, but in our book (or magazine, as the case may be) nothing beats a cool custom cruiser with all the right styling cues. In most cases that means a shaved body, frenched headlights, lowered suspension, a chopped top, and of course, a peaked hood. Over the course of the past year we've covered how to chop your own top, the right way to drop suspension, and even how to make your headlights frenchier than the crispiest fry, so we thought it was about time to tackle one of the more difficult tasks in the customizing realm, adding a nice body line peak to a perfectly good (and flat) hood. As luck would have it, Troy Ladd and Ryan Rivers of Hollywood Hot Rods in Burbank, California, were performing just such an operation. While both men are talented fabricators with loads of bodywork experience, neither had actually peaked a hood before, which added an interesting wrinkle to the tale.
Our victim was a relatively stock early-'50s Chevrolet, which any Bow Tie aficionado will tell you has a hood flatter than a Waffle House flapjack. Early customizers added a raised line running down the length of the hood that matches the break in the windshield and the body line in the roof for extra eye candy, a trick they borrowed from the more premium automakers like Cadillac. Of course, you can't simply pound the line into the middle of the hood, as that would deform the entire unit, so a different tactic has to be taken. Unlike most car magazine "how to" stories, which edit out the learning curve and dish up the streamlined finished product in a few easy-to-follow steps that usually aren't all that easy to replicate, we decided to include a few of the "learning experiences" we went through on the way to a perfectly finished piece of masterful metalwork. We'll show you our first (and relatively successful, but not perfect) attempt, then move on to a more refined way to accomplish the task.
This job requires moderate skill to accomplish, as you need a few metalworking tools, as well as patience and the ability to weld thin sheetmetal. Read the entire article before running out to the garage with a Sawzall in hand, and spend as much time measuring and planning as possible before attempting to cut your hood in half. With that disclaimer out of the way, let's get to the nitty gritty stuff.
In our experimentation phase, the first thing Ryan tried was bending a piece of mild steel into a 60-degree angle on the brake, which he would then finesse into the perfect peak shape. |
Here you can see the sample piece after it has been bent, and it's far too big to make a proper line in the hood, not to mention it would be difficult to blend in properly. |
Ryan's solution was to make a buck out of a piece of wood, with the correct angle cut out to accommodate the bent steel and radiused corners, that would allow the edges of the steel to spread flat, forming a more gradual transition. |
Using a planishing hammer, the edges of the metal were worked and spread in the buck to create a more gradual transition into the peak. |
The finished sample piece was laid down on the hood, and as you can see, it looked pretty good. |
After marking off the true center of the hood, the shaped metal was tacked into place. |
Next, Ryan welded the peak onto the hood. It looked fine to our novice eyes, but Ryan wasn't happy with the net result. Besides the fact that the peak was too sharp, slight warping occurred. |
The decision was made to remove the new metal from the hood, which was done with tin snips. As soon as the peak was gone, the warping disappeared. It was time for Plan B. |
Ryan felt that a larger piece of metal would allow for a shallower angle, as well as more space to allow for cooling and prevent warping. In applications like this the best metal to use is cold-rolled 18-gauge steel, since it's thick enough to maintain its shape after being worked on, but still thin enough to be pliable. The cold rolling is necessary because it keeps the metal workable, as opposed to steel that has been stamped or poured which can be brittle. |
The same basic technique was applied, once again, to the larger piece of steel, with about a 90-degree bend put into the metal with the brake. |
Ryan used the same wood buck to form the bottom curve of the peak, only this time the base is much wider, cut to the same width as the gap in the hood. |
The new steel was then put in its place with a series of small tack-welds. |
Keeping the tack-welds evenly spaced with lots of time to cool between passes prevented warping, and after enough passes the entire space will be filled up with small welds, which can then be ground smooth. Notice the nice point Ryan finished the peak off with. |
Ryan ground the welds smooth slowly and evenly with a small grinder, making sure to take long, light passes with plenty of cooling time. |
With enough grinding, the welds disappeared, leaving a smooth bridge between old and new steel. |
Next it was time to "nose" the car, by removing the holes in the hood where the emblem once resided. Small pieces of steel were patched-in and ground smooth. |
By utilizing this method, the peak remains straight as an arrow, as opposed to building up a peak with a welding rod and lots of welding, the way some people do it. |
The finished product looks like it came that way from the factory, except the factory never built anything so cool! |