1953 Cabrio 1300, adria blue, red leather, darkblue Softtop

[Frank Schanko]

Thanks Manuel,

this will help.

Today i drove 250 miles for a piece of wood.
Tomorrow i try to install. Somebody told me, i will need a lot of beer for that kind of work.
We will see!

[Frank Schanko]

Today i worked 2 hours with a Dremel, and 3 Bottles of Wolters Pilsener.

[Manuel Marquard]

Frank:
It's really a nice piece of work the rear firewall you had made. There are still real craftsman and equipment in Germany to do this kind of work.

Fortunately, in my 54 cabrio I only replaced the curved sections with Oak wood that were rotten. As you know, this rear bow was nailed to the rear firewall and also to the outside body sheet metal skin; what I did to simplify the work on the outside metal skin, was to pre-drill the nail holes with a fine drill bit on the body skin before, in order to drive the nails easier into the wood and avoid hitting the painted body. The inside is no problem because you have the rear firewall that is going to be covered with carpet. Also, I also used JB Weld epoxy to glue the wood on the body.

I noticed that your wood bow is square (flat) on top, do not forget to round it off and make a bevel cut on the side that faces to body, in order to get a nice surface to nail the the canvas top to it. Do this operation BEFORE you install the wood bow in the car.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Regards,

Manuel
(something else, you will need a lot of patience, glue and beer).

[Frank Schanko]

Thanks Manuel,

im nearly finish with the wooden things, only some fine work and paint on the wood.
Do you have a detail, how and where to fix the carpet and inner/outer canvas on the tack strip correct? I saw many options on restored Cars.
As you know: Everybody says:"My car is original restored" But all are different.
A nightmare;)

Thanks for looking

Frank

[Frank Schanko]

Aluminium door plates recreation welded. Need to cut out the form on my car.
Maybe tomorrow..
The plates are all factory handmade for each car.
The drilled holes in my doors are 5 millimeter wider than Manfreds 55.

[Frank Schanko]

Ready with the wood. Now i have to wait for the Leather and Carpet to fix and form the firewall.
I think minimum 2 weeks pause.

Frank

[Frank Schanko]

Next week i will order the Carpet and the Canvas materials.
Still dont know where to buy.
The dark blue softtop was listed in the production card.
Last pictures for now.

Thanks for looking

Frank

[Omar Almada]

Cool 8)

[Frank Schanko]

I ordered an "Zertifkat".
The german ones are in a different Style than the US Certificates.

[Frank Schanko]

New pictures from the inner Softtop.
It will be correct Horse Hair lined.
Next step after Canvas on Monday: Engine install.
The engine is complete restored and runs well.

Stay tuned

Frank

[Frank Schanko]

Horse Hair between the inner and outter fabric.

[Steve Harrison]

What an incredible amount of hand work going into that top. Very well done.
The picture with the horsehair makes it look like a poodle dog (temporarily) ; )
You must be very happy to get to these last finishing things,...the fun stuff.

Nice job.

[Frank Schanko]

Thanks Steve,

The Canvas is complete.

Now i got all the Innersprings and Fabrics for the Seats.
A Company here copied the Innersprings from my old rusty ones.
The old Seats are still there, but very rusty and they smell like a 500 year old Salami.
The wood was wrecked and the metall upholstery Springs was not hard enough anymore.

Well, i try to recreate them.

[Frank Schanko]

Next step is Coconut Stuff and than the Leather.

[Frank Schanko]

The latest pictures from the canvas.
Thanks for lookin

Frank