OK, OK, it has been far too long since I have posted an update. Time seems to have gotten away from. I am, however, making slow progress on the Buick. There's no way I can fully list what I've done, but here are some of the highlights.

I did manage to get the firewall repainted. I sanded it good with a small hand sander. I then repainted it, this time putting on multiple thin coats. the end result looks pretty good. There are a few areas where I didn't sand the runs quite enough and they are visible, but I'm not going to worry about it as they're on the firewall and won't be readily visible. I think I've learned that multiple thin coats are the way to go. My first impulse is to have the first coat look like the final one, hence the drips. Of course, a good finish comes in multiple thin coats.

The repainted firewall, sans drips.

My next task has been to redo the wood in the rear of the car. I started by removing all of the wood from the left rear quarter panel. This was pretty straight forward. The biggest problem was in removing the door post and the piece that is glued to it an dgoes down the wheel well. The two pieces are screwed together from behind and have to be removed as one piece. The problem is that there is a bracket attached to the top of the fender that prevents this. So in order for the pieces to be removed I had to cut this bracket off. It will have to be rewelded to the fender when it comes time to reassemble the whole thing.

Fortunately, there was enough of the wood left behind for a good pattern. I started by glueing multiple pieces of 4/4 ash in order to get "blanks" of the appropriate size. These were then shaped to the proper size. The most difficult piece to recreate was the curved piece along the wheel well. The original was done in two pieces joined at an angle by large finger joints. It took quite a bit of playing around with both finger joints and box joints to get something I liked. In the end it wasn't perfect but appears to be strong enough for the purpose. Next I had to get the curvature right. This took three tries and in the end the results were 100% correct, but it seems to work. Once the pieces were finished I gave them three coats of polyurethene varnish. This will hopefully provide some degree of protection in case the wood ever gets wet.

Reassembly went pretty smooth and everything actually seems to fit and be solid. Before putting the wood in I painted the entire area with Eastwoods Rust Encapsulator. With the left side all assembled I now turned to the right hand side. Just yesterday I got all of the wood on this side taken out and will now start building the wood. I'm glad I started with the left side, because the right side came out in many, many pieces. Fortunately the two sides are mirror images of each other. So I can use the left hand pieces to recreate the right hand side.

Boards glued up to make the door post.	The third time was the charm for this one.
Completed pieces for the left side. Pieces above the window were good enough to reuse.	Everything installed and ready to move to the other side.
Right hand rear quarter panel with wood removed.	This is the curved piece from the right hand side. Glad I started with the other side. It would have been totally depressing to recreate this one with these pieces.

All text, images and information, unless otherwise noted, are Copyright Ó Gregory T. Roselle 2008, and may not be reproduced without the express written approval of the author. All rights reserved.