Body - Timber Framing - Ready to Chop

I have channeled the coupe body already which means the body has been allowed to slip lower down over the chassis. This reduces the overall height of the car and gives the illusion of the car being closer to the ground.

The next stage is to chop the roof. This not only lowers the car further but it also changes the proportions making the car look a bit more agressive.

Before you can do that though it is essential to brace the body with wood so that the whole thing doesn't collapse once the roof is cut away. As you can imagine the roof is like the brace across the top holding all the sides together. Without that the sides would just flop around.

These next few pics show the timber framing inside the body. Next stage is planning where I am going to cut....more on that later but not until Stan "the fibreglass man" Andrews has been to give me some much needed advice.

Lastly, today has been a bit of a sad day. I lost my workshop mate. Sophie our cat who just loved being nearby, was a real good companion. It didn't matter if I was writing this blog in the study or if I was working in the shed. She was never far away.

Unfortunately today though she appears to have been hit by a car and had a badly broken jaw and what looked liked some pretty major internal injuries, so we had to put her down.

Anyone who has called in and helped me with my hot rods will recall her sitting in her favourite spot in her basket on top of my parts storage cupboards. From this vantage point she could see what was going on outside, through the venetian blinds, and also had a great view from which to watch all the goings on. It didn't matter if it was hammering, welding, grinding, fibreglassing, painting, swinging a few tools or just polishing, she didn't seem to mind the noise and was always there.

Here she is helping me blog....

And here she is in that favourite spot on top of the storage cupboards in the shed.

I'll really miss her.