One last item to make the front quarters complete, minus the glass, is to attach the upper headers to them. The headers fit between the latch and coupe pillars using mortise and tenon joints, and are then screwed to the pillars via pocket holes. The headers must be flush with the metal covering the wood. The belt rail which forms the bottom of the window opening, determines how wide the pillars are set apart. The same width must be maintained from top to bottom. I think mine are between 1/8th and 1/16th of each other. Of course, this can be adjusted slightly during final assembly
Here, I've drawn out a mortise on the pillar coupe similar to the existing one on the hinge pillar. The header has a corresponding tenon that fits into this hole.
Below, you can see the tenon that fits into the mortises. There is one at each end. The wood is cut so to flare slightly outward and be flush to the pillars when assembled. There was enough of the originals remaining to determine this angle.
These screws are temporarily holding the header in place. Final screws will need to be sunk deeper into the header so the heads do not protrude. This header has a slightly too high surface and needs to be sanded down just a tad. The tenon on top of the rear pillar fits into a mortise in the roof rail.
Here's the driver's side front quarter header installed. The extra material on the front pillar to the right will be cut off after the mortise is located. The windshield header sits higher than the bottom of the quarter header. You can see the header is a little to high in this photo, just to the left of the pole.
The latch and hinge pillars are connected at their bottoms via the rocker panels. However, the pillar bottoms need some work before this can be accomplished. I will show that in the next post. Until then...
Comentários