We have a 1966 Marlin and last summer Noah went along with me and my dad, to the Kenosha homecoming. Kenosha, Wisconsin is the place where AMCs were built from their inception back in 1954 up till the end, in 1988. At this show there were all kinds of AMC, Nash and Hudson cars. Noah thought the Rebel Machine and the SC Rambler were very cool in the red, white and blue livery.
Noah decided to make his own plan this year, traditionally he has drawn his plan on paper and I have created my plan in Visio. He worked almost a week to get his plan for his car completed on his computer:
I think he weighed every block we have in the shop to find the lightest block. He drilled the axle holes, tested the drilling by adding wheels and running the block down the test board. He then glued a pine block to the top. He then cut out the weight reduction pocket from the block. Then he then cut the wheel wells out and glued the side pine blocks to the side of the main block (the sides are long as I didn’t check the measurement when we cut the side blocks on the chop saw). At this point the weight was at 10.47 oz.
Then everything was trimmed up on the sides and ends. At this point the weight was at 7.96 oz.:
The plan drawings were traced to the side, then it was cut out on the band saw (I knew I did something on this). Then the top cots were marked and cut out. At the end of this the weight was at 4.79 oz.:
Noah then used the forstner bit to recess the DFW in approximately 1/16”:
Then the carving and shaping started. At the end of this the weight was at 4.52 oz.:
Then the filling, sanding and priming started. The car is primed and sanded 3 times to make sure the wood grain does not show back through:
We then made the aluminum bottom and painted the white and the blue on the car. It was time to add the aluminum tape to replicate the chrome on the car. Noah drew all of the decals for this car, we printed them on clear decal paper and applied the decals.
The wheels were painted blue, sometimes hard to see the blue against the black wheel. The axles were polished, the wheel bores were polished and waxed, and it was lubed and run down the test board. It was set to steer 3” in 4’, it was ready to race.
Finally, pictures of the completed car. The reflection one is my new favorite:
The Rebel Machine was 8th place in the stock class (out of 15 cars) and 5th place in the Real Street class (8 cars). We may have to play with it some more before we race this one again.
