Ive been regularly reading the resto threads keeping abreastb of whats happening out in folks garages, sheds and driveways ...Whats tha got to do with roof corners your asking ( maybee your not ) Ive seen folk tackle the roof corners in all diffrent ways all with good results at the end of the day .. However why is it that there are no aftermarket repair sections for the roof corners ... I got to thinking about it after reading smoggyrich's post on his roof resto work.. I nipped out to the shed and had a go at making a roof corner to see what the problems were and how feesable it would be to make them... I nipped down the other shed armed with a camera 2 rools of tape and a felt pen... and heres what happened next.. First off I had a look at my own roof corner which needs a wee bit of attention.. I then made a template of the roof corner using 2 inch wide masking tape 4 layers in a criss cross patern to ensure it all stuck together when it was peeled off I marked the body lines on the tape then covered it with a layer of reinforced parcel tape.. The reinforced tape acts like a layer of fibreglass and helps keep the curvature of the panel in the tape patern... and save the guide lines being rubbed off.. I then peeled it off and gave it a trim.. I decided that forming the gutter rail in one piece wasnt required for this exercise I wanted to see if the roof corner shape could be formed .. there a bit to muich going on in the gutter to do it in one hit I think ... but read on.. I then raked up some scrap 20g steel, layed the template on and roughly marked the shape on the sheet From there I shrunk along the outer edge of the panel to draw the metal in and start the curved shape once there was a wee bit of curve in the panel I dropped the shaped patern over the top to see where the metal needed to go... any airpockets under the patern are a clear indication that the area below needs raised up ( stretched )
From that small ammount of effort you can see the shape in the panel is starting to resemble the roof corner Are you bored yet? I then marked the body line on the edge and set that, I shpould have paid more attention since its a wee bit wavy but the purpose was to see if this could be done.. call it a test piece.. I also tipped the edge on the inner radius which was a bad idea... I had a wander to the other shed and dropped this part onto my roof corner to see where we were at .. I would love to tell you it fitted first time but it didnt.. although it looks like it does in the picture ... It looked like it was dooable though so I trudges back to the other shed and gave it a tweek, lost the inner radius edge and made up a gutter flange just to see if things would work out
It looks like with a wee bit more time and effort and some additional detail work on the gutter rail to match the detail on the van these corners could be made in two parts ...
like all who have said before and no doubt after me, that is very impressive work. If you go into mass manufacture of these
Top work there! Schofields can bend a gutter section to match the shape of the gutter at the corner which would save you some time, but I'm guessing you'd rather make the gutter yourself as well
