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Rear wheel arch NS

Posted: Sun May 12, 2019 4:02 pm
by sp250boy
Gent's
not sure quite what to do, with my Lanchester La 11 1939

The wheel arch wooden frame is rotten and there is no strength there at all.

Has anybody got a template of the arch or know anybody that could help?
Lanchester la11 arch.jpg
lanchester arch 2.jpg
thanks for any feedback

Re: Rear wheel arch NS

Posted: Sun May 12, 2019 5:44 pm
by John-B
Email JT7196 (Alan Wheatley) who has a LA11 and lives in Yeovil, not a million miles away from you.

Re: Rear wheel arch NS

Posted: Sun May 12, 2019 10:36 pm
by JT7196
Hi John,yes my N/S rear Arch was the same, I was fortunate to have a friend who was a cabinet maker , who was well qualified to sort out my car.
One way would be for you to laminate several layers of Marine ply to recreate the correct curve around some formers,
.I have some pictures taken during the repair of mine, but not sure that they would be of any use to you unfortunately.

Cheers Al

Re: Rear wheel arch NS

Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 8:18 am
by ranald
Hello, Have you read this topic? http://forum.dloc.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2848
All the best, Ranald

Re: Rear wheel arch NS

Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 6:22 pm
by buckfield
IMG_1655 (Medium).jpeg
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Hi, yours is better than mine for that part of the resto, I clamped my doors on with a sash cramp as my body was very weak and prone to distort! this is the jig/template I made for steaming and bending the strips of kiln dried ash sections, made a template from the remains (not much) and traced the outline of the rear arch and transposed that onto a sheet of ply and fitted steel strips and small angles to hold the ash laminate pieces using g-clamps to hold them fast and used a wallpaper steamer and a length of drainpipe and steamed for about 45 mins and bent them into the former/jig and left for a day and then used the same jig/former to glue them together with cascamite/resintite adhesive and used the clamps to squeeze out the excess glue and stored them until needed and trimmed to fit using bandsaw/plane/sander etc, not an easy job and I didn't get it right 1st time, I don't know if this is the pro way of doing it but it worked and the arches are very strong and used this book as a guide, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/358 ... -companion. hope this helps Tony.

Re: Rear wheel arch NS

Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 6:28 pm
by buckfield
Some pics of the jig I made. upper is the lower rear section and the smaller is the rear door area. and pics of completed arch but still needing sanding a bit. Tony
IMG_1657 (Medium).jpeg
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Re: Rear wheel arch NS

Posted: Wed May 15, 2019 7:58 pm
by sp250boy
Hi Tony,
thanks for the pictures...

What is the size of the ash you used?

Don't suppose you want to make another arch :D

Thanks Steve

Re: Rear wheel arch NS

Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 1:16 pm
by buckfield
Hi, yep ash strip was 1/4 thickness and 2 1/2 wide all kiln dried which you can get of ebay, just make sure there are no defects and avoid any ash with knots or lumps etc. it was hard to begin with, steaming/bending and gluing didn't take long to do but most of the work was in making the lap joint accurate and then use the cascamite to fill any small gaps, a bandsaw was a real bonus and an electric planer, laminating is stronger than a single piece of wood so you can cut it down a bit and still retain the strength, I've only fitted the arch on one side as an injury to my arm has prevented anymore work on the rear wood structure, but have made all the rear structure, I'm just waiting for my arm to heal before before continuing the resto, look online for tips of how to steam and bend the ash and you should be ok with it. I'm not a "natural" woodworker but I managed to get it right the second time, the arches are the hardest to get right, the rest is mainly flat ash sections. good luck. Tony