Thursday, March 13, 2008

here's where I'm at...

My good buddy Rob will probably label me crafty after I let this cat out of the bag... For the past few months I have been secretly working on turning my bathroom into an aluminum clad room. I have a friend with a 1948 tradewind and I have fallen in love with the look of the segmented end caps. I also really love the way the old Spartans had all aluminum bathrooms, so I desided to recreate that look in Anna's bathroom.

I began by dividing the end cap into 13 segments. The inspiration for this project came from Carlos Ferguson's 1962 Safari project. He had photos as to how to template the space. I adapted his technique to come up with a hands free method. I screwed 1" strips of 3 mm plywood to the interior and used them to cut to the outside of the template.

I then cut out the pieces in metal...

Next I sanded the bottom edge so it was nice and smooth...

Laid out the holes for the rivets....

Drilled and clecoed...

And presto, end cap.

I wrapped the medicine cabinet too.

9 comments:

crowldawg said...

I like the way it looks. nice job.

Anonymous said...

This is getting GOOD! I love last minute surprises. Despite some trials and tribulations you seem to be having a great time doing this. I'm rooting for you.

dc

Frank Yensan said...

Thank you folks for the kind words. I really am having a ball with all this and just might have some tricks up my sleeve....

crowldawg said...

Stupid question .Did you buy,borrow or build a brake for your metal work?If so please post a picture.
tom

Frank Yensan said...

There is a good picture on the Jan. 28 post of the break. I bought it from harbor freight for about $70. It will only do 30"and will not handle thick material too well. It has served me well though, bending new "J" channel and the parts I used for the Atwood door conversion. I want to make new window casing, but will either need to overlap pieces, or use someone's for the top and bottom of the bathroom window, due to the 30" limit.

crowldawg said...

Frank,
If you are interested contact steve@stevehenryracing.com I bought plans from him on ebay to build a brake .I beleive it could go to 8 ft.He designed it to build panels for a race car .I thought I could make it and use it for vinyl and aluminum on homes"YUCK". It would be stationary and you like I may not have the space for it

Anonymous said...

Frank, I clicked a link on airforums and got here. Nice endcap! I am considering trying this myself. What is that black stuff you used for template material? and do you remember how many sheets of Aluminum you ended up using?

Regards

Torii

Frank Yensan said...

Torii, glad you found me. The black pattern paper is tar paper. Very cheap and it forms the curve easily. Remember to allow for lots of overlap on the panels.

Anonymous said...

Frank,
Beautiful work! What is the gauge of the aluminum sheets you're using? Is it pre-polished? Also, how are you cutting the aluminum?
Kathleen