| Tuula's "boat fever" got worse and worse during the summer, until there was no cure but to get one. I love boats, but didn't even consider spending a cent on one until finishing the Buick. That didn't stop Tuula, as it appeared she had been saving money for it over a long time. This is to say we spent most August weekends searching and testing suitable boat candidates, and when Tuula finally bought one (old Maxum Bowrider), we didn't have a dock for it, so we had to bring it into our yard and decided to service it for winter. As you can quess, this means minimal progress on the Buick. |
 I
have been fabricating this shifter for a long time. Even though I'm
going
to notch the bench seat, the shifter has to make a severe bend to clear
the seat. This approximates the orientation on 1st and 3rd gears. The
rod
is made of stainless bar stock. You may not notice that the rod has
been
machined flat at sides at the bend, to reduce mass and to provide a
flat
area to facilitate engraving. The boot came from Lokar. I wanted to
have
something different for the knob, and what you see is a one-off
knob
made of Spectrolite stone, which is found only in Finland and is
used for jewelry. The prism and color effects on this ball are not that
remarkable, so it was affordable. An excerpt from another site: "Spectrolite
was found in 1940 during World War II when the Finns built a defence
line
on the eastern border. Spectrolite crystals were found in stones raised
as antitank obstacles".
Goes together with a postwar Buick, huh? |
 |
| Removing old paint from the decklid and hood the was a labor-intensive job, using way too many 3M rust/paint removal wheels on an angle grinder. The adhesion of the factory paint is amazing! Just to be cautious, the rear decklid and hood were never sandblasted, although they were rusty. The hood had rusted through where it rests against the two metal stops at the cowl. I welded those areas and also filled the area under the front emblem with lead. I also filled the decklid handle opening (in favor of a solenoid). I'm going to keep the bombsight hood ornament, and I actually found a better one at eBay about a year ago. I kinda like the look of bare steel - how about you? |