Wednesday, October 28, 2009

The Eagle Has Really Landed This Time

A few weeks ago we were out for a Sunday afternoon drive in the Mineral Point area of Wisconsin. That portion of our state is really interesting in that it was settled very early in our state history. Limestone is abundant and it was used extensively in construction. Downtown Mineral Point is quite unique. The majority of the buildings are constructed of limestone so it creates a beautiful early American setting.



So we are cruising around the back roads. In that part of the state you can really get off the beaten path if you want to. We are driving along a very quiet country road. We look over to our left and this guy is standing in a pasture full of cows knawing away at something. We see bald eagles from time to time in Wisconsin but it is still a real treat to come across one in this kind of proximity. We were able to pull out the camera and shoot several pictures before he became suspicious and took off.

Watch the blog the next few days. I have a couple more interesting shots from the little road trip to Mineral Point.



The Show Gig project continues to move along. We are getting close to completing construction of the body. Today Bob made up the fenders and installed the louvers on the rear body panel.



The fenders are made of wood in traditional form and I just set them up on a plank for a test fit of how they will look. Ultimately the fenders will be mounted on metal brackets that will be mounted to the body.



The louvers are a false louver which was commonly done on vehicles of this type. Reminiscent of larger sporting carriages that had functional louvers, some gigs had falsies. They give the same impression but were not functional. These type of vehicles were not large enough to house dogs which the louvers were intended for in the first place.



Here you can see the fender and seat frame in a little closer detail. The end of the fender has a soft radius and we detailed the edge with a traditional cove chamfer.



The frame is back in pieces. We have test fit all of the mechanical parts, spring mounts, springs, fasteners and so on in order to get the basic form. Now it all comes back apart one more time for some additional detail work on the wood shafts. The shafts will be shaped with an edge chamfer which Bob will be doing tomorrow morning. Then they will be sanded and cleaned up before they are assembled for the final time.

Sit tight on the Tim Maloy details. I still have another driving video to post and the scoop on his new projects. Just too many blog topics at the moment. We’ll get to it after a couple more Mineral Point pictures.

Have a great day!
T

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