Copper 1940 Ford

BangkokDean

BangkokDean

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Copper 1940 Ford

I'm not even going to imagine what this would cost.

I looked it up on the internet and here is what else was said.
November 8, 2005 One of the most spectacular hot rods we’ve ever seen was on show on the Ford stand at SEMA last week. With a copper body based on a 1940 Ford Roadster, the car screams handmade and classical workmanship. Scratch (dare we say that word with so much hand hammered copper in sight?) the surface and you’ll find a chassis and powertrain based on the same Ford GT platform that underpinned the GTX-1 and GT, the Ford 40 GT is a very different way of using the 5.4 litre, 550-horsepower supercharged V-8. The entire package is absolutely breathtaking and the story behind it is equally impressive with the copper hammered at a former Soviet MIG fighter aircraft manufacturing facility in Poland and the assembly by Kirkham Motorsport which usually makes beautiful hand-sculpted cars from aluminium.


Nice automotive exercise in working with copper.

http://www.kirkhammotorsports.com/galleries/custom-cars/copper-40-ford
 
Amazing craftsmanship - with that said, copper is about the easiest metal there is to form. I learned by having to build a hood for someone's home range. I was really concerned about doing the work, so I charged accordingly (working for my dad at the time) - which is calculated like this (hours*shop rate)*2 = normal home installation price. Normally speaking a 6' hood in a restaurant cost (at the time) 10,000 installed. I charge 4x that. I figured it'd take at least a month to build the hood.... I had it done in 2 days.

I almost felt guilty for charging so much, however the customer was the biggest ass I've ever met - so I figured the "ass tax" was covered by the extra shop time.

(haven't heard of the ass tax? it's the rate someone charges if they think you're an ass)
 
More copper from the same shop in Poland

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypw5bzsGAxE[/ame]
 
Astounding. Never saw anything like this in copper.

In the early 70's I became involved in a Ford Cobra body repair. The car was owned by an acquaintance at work (Tall blonde Northern Italian descended secretary!!) . I had a friend who was to become a California attorney..at that time he worked as an insurance adjuster. The insurance company for the car's owner tried to pass off a repair job in Bondo. Me and my adjuster friend were successful in rejecting the Bondo repair and forced the insurance company to repair the car with perfect aluminum body pieces....

What an odyssey!!! In those years, if you wanted factory original body panels, you had to place an order and wait...After enough orders had been received, the AC Bristol motorworks in England (The AC Ford Cobra had a AC Bristol body) would send out a crew of body panel beaters. The body female mold was wood. Aluminum sheets would be placed over the wooden mold and then beat with hammer heads that were basically leather bags full of lead shot. After beating into shape the otherwise rectangular sheets were cut down and shipped. The beaten aluminum sheets that replicated the various body contours, were "dimpled." Being smacked with the leather bags, there was no smooth continuous contour..just a lot of dimpling.

I saw all the various skin body sections for the to be repaired Cobra. All the sections were slightly dimpled. The recommended aluminum body artisan was "Danny Rose." Never forget the name. We were recommended to Danny because he had fabricated Bonneville aluminum streamliners. Nevertheless, he had a back yard large garage for his body work.. We engaged him. What we did ultimately find out was that although he an excellent reputation as a aluminum body man, Danny had gravitated into a severe alcohol problem.

His reproducing the Cobra body from the door forward took a LONG time, since he would only work when sober. Actually, he did a really great job. The dimpled body panels were hammered and smoothed out with sand paper. He didn't use bondo to smooth out the dimps. His aluminum welds were, to me amazing, the thin aluminum panels were tig (?) arced...there was no distortion, they were sanded.....and when you looked at the panels after welding and finishing...you could see only some slight metallic discoloration were the panels had been joined.

Like the guy with the copper and also aluminum of my experience, these people are true artisans.

But go look at a Modern Art Museum. Look at all the useless mundane "art" ...it all looks mostly stupid to me. Someone recreating an AC Ford body in aluminum or the Ford sedan in copper is exhibiting a lot more artistry as far as I'm concerned.
 
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Aluminum and copper are pretty easy to weld without warping because they are a great conductor of heat. In fact, you really have to try hard to get either of them to warp, especially copper. Aluminum, if you get it hot enough will slag or slough off. Copper, you can put huge heat into it and weld it very quickly because the copper works so well at transferring the heat - about the only way I can think of to warp it would be to cool it with a rag instead of just letting it cool off naturally.
 
I like the aluminum billet Cobra they built even better yet.

Ralphy
 
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