'57 Corvette

Very detailed work Denis, nice planning buddy, that fixture rocks! At work we use the word fixture instead of jig, we get to charge more because it sounds more technical then jig, lol.

Can't wait to see how this turns out, best of luck my friend.

It's amazing the tricks that are used to cash in a little more.  Jig is much shorter to type and I'm saving my fingers for building lazy.

A little progress on the windshield...

I temporarily glued the glass in to see how much room I am working with and test fitted it on the body.
The frame lines up where it's supposed to go and I have a little play room.



This windshield was horribly molded and is uneven from one end to another so using the mirror method to make the cuts threw things off and my cuts ended up crooked.
On the plus side because the frame has no grooves for the windshield I will be able to cheat a little to straighten things out a little.  I will have to do a little more sanding but I want to keep the middle brace as thin as possible to keep the look clean.



I glued two pieces of styrene together, the top one will be on the outside of the frame and the bottom on the inside.  



Before I go any further with this I sent the glass in the BF to get rid of the tint to clearly see the clean up I have to do with the edges.
I will turn my attention to the interior until then...thanks for following along!

Good stuff Denis, I like how this is working out for you.

That's going to do the business Denis. Nice work buddy.

Thanks guys!

Still plenty of work to before I'm out of the woods.

I tinted the windshield with Alclad smoke and sent in in BF for stripping.

This resulted in a very hazy windshield but only on the side where it was tinted.  
I had another glass which was a two but only tinted the one with Alclad that I put in the BF and the part without the Alclad smoke came out clear.  So it isn't the BF!

This was the windshield before the tinting.


After tinting and sent to the BF


Sanding to come in my future!

The Alclad must be etching the plastic, is my guess. It is lacquer based after all.

The sanding and polishing of the windshield interior has revealed that the etching runs deep in the plastic.

It also shows the stress the plastic was put under while I tried to to bend it in the first place.
Cracks are quite noticeable in person but hard to capture on photo.



More nastiness that I could likely fix but would cause further stress on the plastic.
These are just a couple of examples and the other half isn't any better.



Tinting the windshield again may cover up some of those flaws or make them even more obvious.
I spent quite a bit of time contemplating and trying to find a way to fix this and in the end I didn't like the odds so I scratched plan C and moved on to a safer plan and used thin clear stryrene for the windshield.  It may not be to scale but then again the windshields provided in kits are far from being in scale either.



Now that I have this out of the way I can move on with the build.  Thanks for checking in!

Wow that sure has given you some real issues. The last rendition looks grea Denis. Good job.

It did Curt but it wasn't in all in vain.  I'm that much wiser for it now.

I mounted the engine and installed the radiator.



Next I went to work on the interior, detailed the door and window cranks.



I got my GM seat belts in, shift stick, painted the ashtray Metallic Grey, same as the cranks.



Dashboard with all trims Metallic Grey.  Can't really make it out but the steering wheel is two colours.
I will get better pictures later. The dash attaches to the body that's why it's separate for the time being.



Next up is sanding and polishing the body before I can put all the things that makes the 57 Corvette such a pretty car.

Wow!! Curt, the windscreen sure gave you problems. The end result looks great though.

Turbo engine looks good too as do the lap belts.

Question:

In the US and Canada, when did factory fitted seat belts become compulsory?

That's Denis, not Curt Al. LOL

I think they were factory fitted from 1968.

Skid wrote:Wow!! Curt, the windscreen sure gave you problems. The end result looks great though.

Turbo engine looks good too as do the lap belts.

Question:

In the US and Canada, when did factory fitted seat belts become compulsory?

Thanks Al, it looks like I am doing a great job on this. BTW, Denis is my othe screen name. Not sure about the turbo though, looks to be a different kind of configuration then I have ever seen.


Did you forget you med's this morning Al?

Thanks guys!

Skid wrote:In the US and Canada, when did factory fitted seat belts become compulsory?

It is around the year Shay mentioned but they retro fitted a bunch in Canada on models that weren't sold previously from the dealerships.

I have the body polished up but have to clean it before taking pics. More soon.

As a pup myself, I luvved the old Vettes. In the early '70s I did the '57 kit and either it didn't come with windshield or I lost it! Maybe there's a curse on the '57!
btw, the thing on top of the engine was the GM fuel injection system. There were problems with it under racing conditions and rules, apparently it wasn't that successful or just ran its course and was dropped a decade or so later.
Seat belt law in U.S. 1968, but awareness came after actor James Dean's death in mid '50s.

Are you near the mad fire Denis? I knew one of you guys was in Alberta.

Great job the wash on the engine really pops. Super job.

Thanks guys! I should have some progress on this over the weekend.

dublin boy wrote:Are you near the mad fire Denis? I knew one of you guys was in Alberta.

Shay I'm a 6 hour drive south of Fort McMurray and yesterday morning I could see the haze carried over from the fire.
Dan (VirusX) is closer than I am but still far away from danger. I will be posting a thread about this in the Off Topic section.
Thanks for checking!

Six hours away, and still in the same part of Canada
We have no idea of that kind of distance over here.

You can drive from the top of Ireland to the bottom in about 4 hours if you don't see any 5-0 on the Motorway.
You would have to go pretty fast though and very early in the morning.

Glad you're safe.

Shay, it takes at least 5-6 days or about 100-120 hours to drive from coast to coast if you drive through Canada.

I got the body polished but just realized my polishing cloth needs a wash after doing this one.





Next up are trims, panel wash and detailing by then I will have a much cleaner body!

Shay here's a link to the Trans Canada Highway to give you an idea. They make reference to the Yellowhead Highway which runs across Edmonton and is part of the Trans Canada Highway.

You'd need a 535d for that, almost M5 performance and 45 mpg. A Miata would work over here! LOL

The paint is looking good Denis, nice and shiney. Nice one.