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I need a large surface plate - Texas

|Rex, mostly guys get some 2 x 4" .125 wall tubing and weld up a rectangle. |Often no table top at all. Sit it on some saw-horses and shim it level. |You can tack your chassis down and away you go. I visited Colchester Racing |Developments, who made the Merlyn cars in the 60's and 70's, and was shown |the table that my car was made on - it was just about exactly what I've |described, but on castors so it could be rolled away. Here's the chassis |build table at Multimatic, and a current Daytona Prototype chassis being |built.

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Brian That's pretty interesting. Of course, I'm just going to be checking mine for square before bonding a new bellypan. I think I'd be better able to do that from a flat surface. Ought to be able to finally get some use out those neat laser levels I seem to be accumulating ;) Rex in Fort Worth

Reply to
Rex B
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Rex in Fort Worth

There are used granite surface plates. Take a look at these links

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If the real thing is affordable, why not get it?

Bob

Reply to
Bonza

checking for square, a string works, believe it or not. Nylon fishing line, pulled tight, and a feeler gage.

Old race cars normally aren't square, to any great extent. And what are you going to do if it isn't? You'll just worry if it's 10 thou out or something :)

Have fun, it's always good to play with race cars!

Brian

Reply to
Brian

|Rex in Fort Worth | |There are used granite surface plates. Take a look at these links | |

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| |If the real thing is affordable, why not get it?

Good point. i had no idea there were so many around. Rex in Fort Worth

Reply to
Rex B

|Rex in Fort Worth | |There are used granite surface plates. Take a look at these links | |

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| |If the real thing is affordable, why not get it?

"Just set that in the back of that red pickup over there" Rex in Fort Worth

Reply to
Rex B

When Colin Chapman invented modern Formula 1 racing with the Lotus 25 in

1962, he did it on a buck made of the Brit equivalent of 4x4 timbers, what looked like Unistrut (or flimsier) to locate station jigs, and abbreviated 1/4" steel plates to secure the fore and aft bulkheads.

Worked pretty well. 'Course there might have been some tricks involved. :-)

Cheers,

Fred "Wish I had a formula car for my winter project - and spring, and summer, and fall, and ..." Klingener

Reply to
Fred Klingener

The first Chevrons were built on the floor of a garage, marked out with chalk. Tools is tools, it's the craftsman that counts. Surface plates make it fast and repeatable - important in some circumstances. chalk, tape measures and string make it slow, painstaking and hard - but you can get from point A to point B by both methods.

Brian

Reply to
Brian

Hey Karl,

Where is that place, like what name, so I can watch the auction sheet?. And what else might they have?

TIA. Take care.

Brian Lawson, Bothwell, Ontario. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX BIG 8><

Reply to
Brian Lawson

|checking for square, a string works, believe it or not. Nylon fishing line, |pulled tight, and a feeler gage. | |Old race cars normally aren't square, to any great extent. And what are you |going to do if it isn't? You'll just worry if it's 10 thou out or something |:) | |Have fun, it's always good to play with race cars! | |Brian

Well, I'm no perfectionist on race prep, but removing a big variable like a non-level, uneven work surface would help a lot. I'll still be a little sloppier otherwise, but for example, once the chassis is bare and bellypan off, just setting it on a clean surface plate and will tell me almost all I need to know about squareness. From there I can re-check after bonding. Then as I add suspension etc I can have a fixed reference plane. Rex in Fort Worth

Reply to
Rex B

Granite is about 170 lb / cu ft so that would be about 25,000 lbs.

Steve.

Reply to
SRF

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