My partly modified bead roller, still a couple of mods to do but it's now firmly mounted on it's stand and no longer flexes. The stand is Victorian, it was originally made by a company in London that specialised in making stuff for wine producers, although I can't find any images that confirm it's exact original purpose. It doubles up as a stand for a metal guillotine.
Driver's door and seat temporarily fitted to make sure I design the door panels so everything fits. The big white ball is a test sphere the same size that the IVA tester will use to make sure the car complies with interior projections rules. Anything that the ball can touch that sticks out more than 5mm and has a hardness of more than 50 Shore A must have a radius of at least 2.5mm. There is an exclusion area that extends 127mm around the steering wheel, the radius of the bottom of the dash has to be at least 19mm, you are not allowed to use obviously temporary measures to game the rules. It's surprisingly tricky to comply.
I have spent an awful of of time thinking about the interior and how I can make it look good and pass the IVA test with my limited skill set. Mrs has a sewing machine but I don't fancy learning to use it, I know I will end up in casualty with my fingers sewn to the machine if I try and then when they have to break the thing to remove it the swearing will start. No, it's better all round if I could come up with some other workable solution. It was while I was pondering this that I came across a youtube channel called Rat Rod Bob Builds. Bob is what is commonly known as a red neck, he is about 120 years old, has been building really cool rat rods for at least 60 of those years and is really, really good at it. He gave me the idea that I am going with, embossed metal panels that I can secure to the doors and paint in blue and white to match the rest of my theme. The only problem I can see is that I don't actually have the machine required to do the embossing. Bugger.
Oh well, there is only one thing for it, I have had to buy a machine, basically the cheapest one on the market, which is only 120 quid. Now at that price you get a machine that will sort of work but it's going to need a whole load of mods before it will do a really good job and easily be operated by just one worn out old fart, ie me. I am not going to go in to massive detail, there are loads of youtube channels that have covered the modification of these machines, which have a few inherent problems as they come out of the box. The most obvious one is that they are simply not rigid enough and to get really good quality beads you need to strengthen it all up first. This is easy to do, just a matter of welding strengthening pieces to the nicely painted item you just paid over 100 quid for. It's breaking eggs to make an omelette, it will end up a far better machine for it. The next thing you absolutely have to do is get rid of the stupid cranking handle they supply, there is no way you can turn it while guiding the work piece through the machine, I suspect they expect you to have a helper. As I don't have a helper I will be getting rid of the crank and replacing it with a steering wheel from a tractor - a much better solution and you can get a new one for under 25 quid delivered.
The other mod I will do is to make a better depth adjuster so it's easier to repeatedly set up the machine to the same depth so it's much easier to do multiple beads at exactly the same depth. Like I said, I'm not going in to massive detail if you want to see / know more just go on to youtube and look for Vevor 18 inch bead roller and you will get lots of really good vids that tell you everything.
I am still working out in my head exactly what I want and then will spend some time with a big pile of scrap to practice my new trade, the price of steel is now horrendous and mistakes will be very costly, and also time consuming. I am happy with the principle though, I think it's a great way of giving contour and interest without making things too complicated. The doors have sound deadening on the outer skins, I think if I put some more on the inside of the inner skins it will give them a nice quality feel and sound when they are shut. They will definitely comply with the IVA rules and as they will only be 1mm thick the edges only need to be blunted rather than radiused.
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