1978 Reliant kitten rebodied in hand formed aluminium

Love it!

And not dissimilar to Horrido's render which is encouraging. Now follows an enforced break while we take the TR over to the Isle of Man for a few days.

ah yes i forgot the door skins were not fitted yet , thank you john .

With the front end buck finished, I've made a start on a bit of metal shaping. The first piece being the section of the bonnet containing the bulge. The bulge was achieved using a hammerform and a mixture of chasers and an air tool for flow forming. I've gone for a subtle uplift similar to Horrido's image which will look good when it's finished. The panel needs a of of wheeling and it is too big for me to handle on my own so I've put it on the back-burner until such time as I have help.











The next piece I chose to tackle is potentially the most difficult of the whole front end because of the amount of stretching involved in achieving the reverse curve. I did manage to split the aluminium during stretching but it welded up okay and the panel is finished. It looks so simple but believe me, there is a lot going on in a relatively small area.

The flip side of producing a panel with a nice polished finish is that it highlights every blemish, every high and every low. Planishing these out causes the profile to change which means constant adjustment to restore the curvature. It's all quite frustrating and and very time consuming. It's still not perfect but it is the best I can do. Fortunately, as I have decided not to have the body painted, I'll avoid any acid comments from the painter . I'm now making profile gauges which not only ensure that this panel stays in shape but mainly that its opposite number on the other side is the same.To further assist in the symmetry, I'm going to make flexible shape patterns which I have never done before but they are a great idea and the brainchild of Wray Shelin

Your talents never cease to amaze me, that and that you're still taking time to learn despite having built cars before!

Can't add much except amazing work - knowing how metal moves is such a dark art.

being as usual completely ignorant on this John , would it have made any difference to do the top longtitudinal shape on the sheet first , then try to do the lateral curve ?

Well, sadly, the front wing section came back and bit me just when I thought it was done and dusted. The problem area is where the top radius changes from almost a 90 degree sector, vertical to horizontal right at the front to perhaps half that towards the scuttle end of the panel. The result I ended up with was the panel sitting off stations 7 & 8 and even the wood pressing tools couldn't lose the excess metal that was the cause of the problem. The section either needed shrinking or cutting out and a new piece of metal inserted. The problem area was too far inboard for the shrinker so the only other solution was to try heat shrinking. This involves heating the metal locally to annealing temperature and then striking it with glancing blows with a slapper and fortunately that worked and we now have a panel.











I did have help with the bonnet and I would like to be able to report that the panel is all wheeled up but unfortunately I guessed wrong and we spent a lot of time stretching the edge (making it ten times as bad as it was)before having a video call with my friend and mentor Trev who spotted the problem at once and said the edge needed shrinking. We spent what little time we had left on the shrinker and although it still looks like a dog's breakfast, it is going to be okay. What we did achieve, however, is the wheeling of the bulge and that did go well. The very edges weren't touched by the wheel so they will need hand planishing just to remove the hammer marks. The ironic thing is that the far side of the bonnet panel that has had no work done has dropped down onto the buck just as a result of the work done on the bulge. How many times do we have to say that this really is a black art.