Best wishes to everyone for a healthy and prosperous New Year!
Some wagon updates, we've been tying up loose ends to get parts ready for upholstery and the roof ready for paint. With the arm rest details ironed out, E is unbolting the kick panels so we can cut out the speaker holes. Mike is getting the roof skin blocked out..
Here's the last detail for the console, we still need our latching mechanism. To keep a minimalist approach, we're going to flush recess some rare earth magnets in the lid, so here's our "pockets" that will be welded into the lid. Starting with some .065 wall tubing the end was faced on the lathe, and the end plates turned to a welding diameter of slightly undersized than the tubing, which allows for a good fusion weld.
Tacked:
Fusion welded using the TIG:
10-32 hex nut for magnet attachment is tacked on....
Trimmed to size...
The material scraps shown were to simulate what will be covering the console and lid for the "pull test". Three magnets appeared to work too well, so we are going drill holes and weld in our recess pockets to use two magnets but leave a space in the center for a third, just in case... Once welded and fitted we'll do one more pull test just to make sure the third one isn't needed..
We also had some parts water jetted out of stainless for our seat belt escutcheons, this should help us get better consistency between parts.....and save time..
