Flying Hammer Blog

Building Update 4/15/2009

Clark Olson — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 02:50:00 GMT

The building exterior is complete. Its 18 feet high at the eaves, 60 feet deep and 100 long (across the front. The canopy sticks out 12 feet off the front. We have started to work on the electrical installation and the garage doors were installed last week. Now that the roof is over our heads, we have no excuses for getting things done, except for the need for more materials (spelled money). Mid summer is a possibility for completion and maybe a grand opening??

Building Update March 11th, 2009

Clark Olson — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:51:00 GMT

The floor was finished on Thursday 2/26/09. It was perfect day for concrete. Sunny, slightly breezy and mid sixty degrees. Roosevelt and his 8 man crew did a superb job of finishing the 106 yards of concrete. 6000 sq. ft of floor. The concrete was pumped by a huge concrete pumping truck capable to reaching out 34 meters. 11 concrete delivery trucks rolled in and out for about 3 1/2 hours. here is a picture of the truck with the boom sections sticking up.

Part of floor poured, remaining portion with plumbing drains and vents stubbed up for later.

Floor after finishing.

Floor with light gray sealer applied, ready for steel.

The erectors arrived 3/10 to begin putting up the steel building. As of 3/11. most of the "red iron" has been put together. here are a few early shots of the steel skeleton. The view from the Route 27 end of the street is pretty impressive. "You can't miss it, once you turn onto Joshua Court!"

From the corner of Joshua Ct. and Rt. 27

Steel after one day of erecting.

Looking from the cul-de-sac end of Joshua Court.

Building Update 1/26/2009

Clark Olson — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:45:00 GMT

On Friday 1/23 the footers were poured. The inspector found everything in prder on Thursday and we got a real break in the weather, after having snow on Tuesday. Friday and the weekend were perfect days for pouring and curing concrete. It reached 60 Friday and as of Monday 1/26, we have not had any temperatures below freezing. The concrete has cured well enough that freezing is not a concern, now. 750 concrete blocks were delivered today and after 2 days of possible rain, the masons should be starting the retaining wall portion of the foundation, this week. When we fill the blocks with grout, we will be forming the building piers and placing the bolts in the concrete to attach the building steel. With a little cooperation from the weather, we should have a shell of a building up by mid to late February!

Suicide Doors: Options for Installation

Clark Olson — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 07:34:00 GMT

When you are ready to install suicide door hinges or use the suicide door hinge kit for a consealed hinge, there are some issues will wil need to decide on:

1. Which style hinge should I use?

    Autoloc offers 2 basic designs. The HDHINS is a heavy duty separate hinge design. The upper and lower hinges are not attached to eachother. This allows the installer to use the hinges with any spacing desired. Usually, the wider the spacing, the better the support for the door and less stress on the B post or door jamb. Remember, the hinge pins must be in a straight line.
    The HDHINY hinge come with the upper and lower hinges welded together using a piece of square tubing. The center to center dimension is approximately 13 1/2 inches. Since the hinges are held in alignment, there will not be any problems with binding.

HDHINS                                                   HDHINY



2. What latches are going to be used?

    The installer could reuse the stock latches. Since the holes from the old latches will have to be closed off anyway, the old latches and the surrounding sheetmetal could be cut out and transferred to the other end of the doors. Swapping the left and right latches may make the installation simpler and cleaner.
    A better alternative could be to purchase the Bear Claw latches and installation kits. The installation kit has the sheet metal pieces predrilled for the latch and striker. Available space will dictate whether to use the large Bear Claw BCLG and installation kit BCINST-L or the mini Bear Claw BCSM and installation kit BCINST-S. Either of these can be used with a mechanical release button, lever or solenoid for electric operation. Also available are the Power Bear Claw Latches BCLGP. This latch assembly has the solenoid mounted directly onthe latch. Install, hook up your wiring from a push button or reote actuator and you are done. It is recommended that a weather proof electric button or manual cable release be installed for "emergency" operation of the latches.
    And don't forget the door poppers. These little spring loaded devices push the door open enough to grasp the edge and open them the rest of the way.

3. How are the doors going to be opened?

    As mentioned above, a manual linkage can be used or electric solenoid operation. Autoloc offers a cable kit which allows mounting a solenoid anywhere inside the door or for connection to the door handles or a lever. If you want to shave the doors (remove all chrome for a smooth look) I have seen a small notch cut into the edge of the door skin, with a lever exposed to open the doors. For a trually smooth appearance, the electric operation is the best choice. A weather proof button can be mounted anywhere, like under a fender or behind a bumper.
    Remote controlled doors is the coolest way to go, though. By using a remote key fob push button and the remote receiver, the doors can be opened remotely with the push of a button.
    As far as the inside handles are concerned, with the use of some cable, the original handles or some custom stuff can easily be used.
    One of Autoloc's shaved door kits includes the pieces for remote operation of the doors or more and can include an alarm system as an additional option. Remotes are available with up to 18 separate functions. In addition to controlling each of your doors separately, openers for the trunk and hood can be added. Linear actuators can be added to any of the doors, trunk or hood for remotely showing off the engine or audio system.

    Check out Autolocs hinge, latch and remote kits at www.thehoffmangroup.com for additional information. Any of The Hoffman Groups parts are available from the Flying Hammer. If something you need is not in the Shopping Section, sned me an email and I will order it for you. clark@flyinghammerllc.com

LED Taillight bulbs

Clark Olson — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 04:06:00 GMT

    LED's or Light Emitting Diodes have been around for several years. Initially they were used as indicator lights for electronics and control panels. They have been used for most of the fiber optic transmission systems used by the telecommunications company for years now. lasers are a thing of the past for communications. LED's can blink allot faster and have plenty of optical power to reach incrdibly long distances and hair sized fibers of glass.
    LED's are now the choice for flash lights, commercial vehicle operating lights ( with the exception of headlights) traffic lights and some have shown up for residential lighting. Recently the led taillights are being used on new cars and light trucks. And for good reason. They are extremely efficient, especially since they produce very little heat. Incandescent bulbs can be used to heat a small space or help eggs hatch. They have a significant energy waste due to the heat which is seldom used for anything useful. LED's run very cool and because of the small size can be multipled to gether to produce adequate light without sacrificing space or energy in the form of heat. One reason the commercial transportation industry embraced this newer technology is the longevity of these lights. Since they have no fragile filament, they are virtually maintenance free. And when you combine 12 or 19 of more LED's in a cluster for a tail light, if one should fail, you still have plenty left to keep operation of a fleet safe and legal.
    Keep It Clean has the 1157 and 1156 bulbs available in 6 colors. We stock the red, white and amber bulbs. The yellow, green and blue bulbs are available on short notice. the suggestion is to match the bulb color to the lenses. For example, use the 1157 red bulbs for the red lense equipped tail lights. Use 1156 or 1157 amber bulbs for the turn signals where amber lenses are in use.
    Keep It Clean is a few months (April or May 2009) away from offering the 3157 and 3156 bulbs. These will be offered in the same colors as the earlier model bulbs.
    And if you sign up for our email newsletter and sales flyer, you will receive a coupon code in an email which will allow you to buy 2 bulbs for the price of 1.

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Clark Olson — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 17:03:00 GMT

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Shrinking and Stretching Sheet Metal

Clark Olson — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:08:00 GMT

Shrinking and Stretching Metal

    Many different tools have been invented for the manipulation of sheet metal. In addition to the normal bending brakes, shears and other cutting tools, there are tools for stretching and shrinking sheet metal. The planishing hammer, hammer and dolly, mallet and shot bag or English wheel all work to stretch metal, usually in the center of the work piece. The shrinker and stretcher combination can be used to shrink or stretch the edge of the work piece. These tools are used to create compound curves or crowned (bowl shaped) pieces. At Flying Hammer we use all of the mentioned tools to fabricate hot rod body parts and interior sheet metal.

   Most of us have used or seen this pair of shrinker stretchers sold by Eastwood, Irvan- Smith and many of the sheet metal tool sources online or at the auto fairs. They have shallow jaws and only the edge of a piece of metal is gripped by serrations. As the handle is depressed, the metal is either pushed together (shrunk) or pulled apart (stretched). If you do this to the edge of piece of bent sheet metal, a curved flange can be created. You can also use this tool along with an English wheel, planishing hammer or shot bag and mallets to create dish shaped metal pieces. By shrinking the edges together, a crowned shape can be made deeper and more pronounced. I have used this pair of tools for many years and made some nice pieces with them. They are limited by the reach of the jaws can reach and they are not effective on thinker gauge material. These tools can be purchased for $250-$350 and some sources have added pneumatic cylinder equipped pair with a foot pedal to do the work for you and speed up the shrinking or stretching. this frees up both hands to control the work piece.
    Both the shrinker and stretcher are necessary. Sometimes you have to bring the deformation of the metal back a little and when creating inside and outside curves, both are needed.
    A few years ago I was attending some of the race shop auctions around Charlotte. At the liquidation auction for A. J. Foyt’s shop in Mooresville there was a shrinker stretcher being sold. This one was different and considerably more advanced than the models listed above. The tool is a blue colored, pedestal based tool with a round handle extending out of the top. This tool is from Eckold, a Swiss company. The jaw assemblies are round and held into the machine with a sort of cam locking lever system.   This lever system allows very quick exchange of dies. Because of the higher cost and size of this tool, usually a shop will have one, with several sets of jaws. The gripping teeth on the jaws are knurled. There is a diamond pattern to the teeth, rather than the serrated jaws in the economy models. Notable features of this shrinker/ stretcher are the depth of reach and the power it produces. The jaws are supported by the heavy gauge steel side plates which form the main body. These side plates are notched so the work piece can extend beyond the gripping part of the jaws. This allows the jaws to do their metal manipulation away from the edge of the piece. In other words, you can stretch or shrink the work piece a few inches in from the edge and use multiple patterns of pushing or pulling to get the desired result. I have seen these notches lengthened, without compromising strength, as deep as 5 inches. This allows reaching deep into the work piece. The strength of the design is strong and this modification did not appear to cause any operational or structural issues.



    This tool has certain feel to it as you work the metal. When the lever is pushed there is a springy feel to it. Of course by controlling the amount of pressure, the amount of change is controlled. I like to mark my piece with evenly spaced lines and work side to side using smaller changes at first. The more smaller bites you take the smoother the result. By marking lines parallel with edge, several rows of stretching or shrinking can be done and a curve can be be pulled into the metal.
    One of the first things I made was a fender for my mini chopper. I first used the English wheel along the center of the rectangular piece of aluminum using multiple parallel passes from end to end. I then used the Eckold along the edges to pull the shaped into an arch. A little more wheel, then more shrinking and more wheel. The English wheel is often used to smooth out the rough spots. Because of the hard smooth wheels, any imperfections can be wheeled away. This included smoothing some of the tooth marks and ripples from the shrinking dies. Trying to make metal thicker by pushing it together always leaves some ripples where the metal is bunched up. The English wheel can smooth allot of this back out. Since the English wheel can only stretch metal, most times you have to introduce more shrinking to produce the desired end result. Practice makes perfect or at least close enough to minimize the addition of body filler.
    Irvan- Smith has it listed for $2995. Complete die sets are $875. The 4 replacement jaw plates are $150 (shrinker) or $155 (stretcher) per set of 4. I won the bid at Foyt’s and got the tool for $850. It was missing one of the jaws sets. Irvan- Smith provided it for $875. This tool is expensive but really worth the cost for serious metal worker.





    Here are pictures of the grill shell for the hot rod M37 project truck. Because the design, the truck has a grill shell completely reshaped from the original, we used 5 pieces of metal to form the shape needed. There are two sides, 2 corners and one top piece. Each piece has compound contours on it, especially the corners. These required a lot of hits on a shot bag with a mallet, some planishing hammer time, shrinking along the edges and finishing on the English wheel. Once the 5 pieces were made and fitted over a wooden buck, they were trimmed, tacked together, then tig welded and hammered to flatten the welds and remove distortion. The Eckold shrinker worked very well for pulling the edges together adding more shape needed for these pieces. The frame around the opening was made from additional pieces and finishes the opening. Those pieces were bent and hemmed on a box and pan brake and then shaped with the Eckold and and the economy shrinker and finished with hammer and dolly. The grill shell is not finished but will require a small amount of bondo and some light hammer and dolly work to make it ready for primer. The second picture shows the cross welded into the center of the framed opening. It is a Dodge and this represents the 2 x 2 matrix of grill openings on the Dodge models. The slats are stainless steel strips welded to a flange for mounting in the openings. In the first picture, the part shown behind the grill shell is the inner cooler for the turbo. We are using a 24" tall x 18" wide x 4½" thick core. It consumes all available space in the grill shell. There are two 14 x 14 radiators mounted next to the four link bars in the rear frame of the truck with stainless steel piping to feed them from the engine.
    There are more pictures of the metal work on the M37 power wagon project at www.flyinghammerllc.com. The photo gallery at the bottom of the home page can be viewed as a slide show.

Radical Customs Are they Making A Comeback?

Clark Olson — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 17:13:00 GMT

    When I was growing up in the Buffalo area, I used to see this 1958 Pontiac based radical custom at the Clutch Artists Autorama every winter. This radical custom '58 seemed to always be in attendance. It was in primer for at least one of those shows back in the '60's. It got some nice yellow candy colors for some years. The last time I remember it, it had a green fogged and faded display of candy colors and pearls.
    What really set this car apart was the body work. Nothing was left unchanged. The head and tail lights were severely frenched, but still left the only clue to the original car being a Pontiac. 1958 was the first year for the quad headlights, this detail was preserved at both ends of the car. This car was low, it was long, it was chopped, channeled and might have been sectioned as well. It stood out then and still does in my mind. Picture gallery from the rodandpiston.com website. This picture gallery is from a car show at Fantasy Island, on Grand Island NY. Its the green and white car with the license Plate LOW 58.
    In the fifties through the early 80's, there were quite a few of these radical works of art. Nothing was left stock. Fenders were lengthened, shaved doors, the body may have been sectioned, and channeled over the frame. Tops were always chopped or completely reshaped. The work went way beyond adding a continental kit and Packard tail lights. In order to listed as a radical custom, the car had to be completely redone, or built from scratch. Ed Roth, Darryl Starbird, George Barris, Gene Winfield were the masters of the radical custom and hot rod. Ed Roth in particular used fiberglass to mold his completely one-off customs. His Beatnik Bandit or the Mysterion were good examples. Ed and others often used the bubble top. This made for a kind of futuristic space ship look. And of course the interiors were just as radical. The bubble roof was natural to show off the stitches.
    These cars seemed to go out of style for a few years. The Pro street thing had its day. Restorations of muscle car has become a major piece of the enthuisaists' interest. The lowriders have always been around and seemed to carry some of the styling cues from the radicals through the generations. But pretty much, the creation of the radical custom or hot rod has been on the back burner.
    In the past few years, there has been a resurgence of the radical art form. Many of the classic cars are being resurrected or cloned. I have seen interest in the Ala Kart, the Beatnik Bandit, and many other classic customs come to the forefront. Some fo the styling features are making their way into the rat rods and full tilt customs. I expect to see more of these cars or clones of them onthe bloack at Barrett- Jackson soon. And the old guys, like myself, will be trying to catch a glimpse from the glory days or maybe taking some of that extra cash out to grab one of these pieces of history.

Hot Rod Fabrication Facility

Clark Olson — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 22:50:00 GMT

    We are getting very close to having the building permit. My mom spotted a newspaper article and tipped me off to an after work get together at the Lincoln County Economic Development Association (LEDA). I attended, along with Tom. Got to mingle with a few motorsports personalities. Doug Herbert was there and so was Ray Evernham. Both helping to promote LEDA and their own projects.  My big news was hooking up with some of the people from LEDA.
    I got a call the next morning. The young lady from LEDA had already contacted the Lincoln County Building And Land Development (BALD) office and the NCDOT driveway permit people. She found out that we are very close to getting permission to actually start our building! I have a minor issue with right of way for my driveway permit to be approved. The only thing holding up the Building Permit, is the driveway permit!! I should have the whole thing completed this week 11/28.
    The weather has not been conducive to pouring concrete. It has been unseasonably cold, as they say. I was able to borrow a skid steer from Skidmore Builders, my GC. After 3 days of scraping and digging, I have the 60x100 site 65% leveled. I cut about 15 inches away from the high corner and transferred the clay (not dirt) to the low corner. I will try to get that clay compacted, prior to starting to dig the footers. One of those big rollers with the giant spikes is available on the adjoining vacant lot. I did get permission to borrow it. Now I need a bulldozer to pull it around. The skid steer would just do wheelies, if I tried to use that!
    The building steel is still going to be delivered December 2nd. It is safe to say that the foudation is still a few weeks off! It looks like heaters and tarps will be needed to keep the heat in the concrete, so it can cure properly!
    I can't wait to start building some hot rods and hot rod parts and pieces. In the mean time, I ma still hoping to sell some of the Autoloc products available at www.flyinghammerllc.com .

Gentlemen, Shave your doors

Clark Olson — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:33:00 GMT

    Go Smooth! Eliminate those unsightly bumps and handles from your doors. This is an old school hot rod and custom car thing, still popular today. Customizers have been shaving doors to create the smooth side look by using solenoids to actuate the door latches for years. Usually, these were operated from a "hidden" button. Modern day technology now allows remote operation via a key fob style control. A spring loaded door popper is used to push the door past the latch, once it releases. One more step could be to add a linear actuator and have the door open itself, after the remote is pressed. Like the side doors on the current vintage mini vans.
Just be careful that no one has parked near your door.
    This can be taken one step further. How about remote actuated, automatic lambo door operation. Unique whips stuff.
    Thanks to Autoloc, any of these options are possible. Although not simple to install. And body work is required to complete the look. The kits available from Autoloc allow any or all of the options to be created. Most experienced body shops can accomplish these additions.

Starting with Autoloc

Clark Olson — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 01:10:00 GMT

October 29, 2008- Recently we formed an alliance with the Hoffman Group. These are the guys who sell lots of cool hot rod accessories, kits and many other things for the hot rodder, street rodder, rat rodder, custom car builder and even a few race car related pieces. We have used Autoloc stuff on our project 47 Dodge Power Wagon and have been pretty impressed with the low cost, quality and simplicity of design. The universal power window operators for example. I used them to power the window operation on the power wagon. This after chopping the tops of the door frames to conform to the new rake of the chopped top. Installing them in the fiberglass doors presented a few challenges and took some time. But they work and are easily adjusted to control my plywood door glass template/ test window. Hooked up a battery and up and down they went. For my first time working with this kit, I was impressed with how well I adapted to it! The long term project has been slowly moving along, lately.
We cannot wait to get the new place up, literally, and running. Seems like years since we got the land, late June 2008. Getting engineers and architects to finish the needed plans was slow. Finally have the plan application in place and are ready to put 'er up! the building steel will be delivered, ready or not, December 2nd. Stay tuned, as they say! "Who are they, anyway?"

UPDATE: November28th
Have all the paperwork in hand to complete the driveway permit and get the building permit. The stell will still be delivered Tuesday 12/2. It will be under a tarp for a few weeks, until the concrete is poured....

Autoloc Products

Clark Olson — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 00:31:09 GMT

Autoloc Door Hinge Systems
    We recently made connection with The Hoffman Group. Having some experience with THG products, I was excited about making them available through our shopping cart site.
    I used a suicide door hinge kit in the normal (at the front of the door) location to hide the hinges for a more streamlined look. Along with the hinges, we used the bear claw latches and the door opener solenoids and door poppers to complete the shaved look. Installing the hinges was complicated because the cab and doors are fiberglass. The kit is made to be welded into a steel cab and doors.
    Since we are adding a roll cage to the Power Wagon, I decided to weld some brackets to the front legs of the roll cage and then bolt the hinge pivots to those brackets. The channel shaped mounting pieces for the doors had to be modified so they could bolt to the inside of the inner door panel. We added flanges to the sides of the channels allowing bolting and bonding these pieces to the inner door. Since the doors were ordered with the inner and outer not yet laminated, this simplified the installation of the suicide door kit.
    Once the channel pieces and hinge pivots were bolted in place, with shims to allow adjustments, the outer skin was Cleco pinned to the inner panel. There will be some bondo work to dress up the door edges and jambs after final mounting.
    The slotted holes on the Autoloc pieces allow more fine adjustments to perfect the flush mounting, smooth operation and minimize the door gaps. Small additions of bondo will help as well.
    Tom suggested a unique option for the bear claw latches and striker pins.   We mounted the latches in the door jamb, with the power door solenoids and put the latch pins on the doors. I wish I had thought of this. This eliminates two more wires having to be routed from the cowl to the door. The only wires will be for the power window actuation and speakers, if we add any to the doors?  A bracket was fashioned and welded to the roll cage to support the latch and the solenoid. The pin mountings were custom made from sheet metal and inserted into the inner door panels. These have the typical square hole with large washers to sandwich the bracket and the door panel while allowing plenty of adjustment.