Thanks Joe!
A few months back we had received some newly polished stainless spears (side trim) for the 55 wagon. Part of the payment was to fabricate a "factory delete" plate for the spare tire well of a 55 chevy in gasser form. He wanted to mimic the factory X pattern that is located along the centerline of the trunk. We recently got this done, and with as-installed pictures received, it seems a good time to post this as well. We had tried a sample using the bead roller, and also had made a die set for the Lennox that would produce both sides at once. Neither worked well at all. I didn't care for the bead roller version much at all since we would be relying on self guiding and the possibility of line deviation. So we opted for a set of offset dies that I had for the Lennox, and producing each side individually. The Lennox works well because the linear slide lets us clamp the part and produce multiple parallel embossings with good accuracy.
A corking tool made from delrin was used to dress up the ends
As primed by the owner... Yes, that is Wisconsin farmland.
Installed...
So there you have it, a rare OEM spare tire delete plate.