Special 1946 project

[CSHADES]

So I got sidetracked from working on project 39 by a new project that I wanted to finish before Christmas so we could use it. I know it is not a truck but it would of been used in the dealership servicing our trucks when they were new. I am in the process of finishing it right now. I will post the in process pictures and finished pictures next week. Here is a couple of pics from when it was delivered to my house after purchase at the back to the 50s swap meet last june. Pretty cool right? From what I found this model was made from 1945-48. it is an Alemite mechanics workstation. We are going to use it in our basement, I have a 50s diner set up down there and we are going to use this as the back bar. the cabinets have shelves in them and I can store all of the glasses and etc. The top has sections for ad glasses which I had new ones made for them and revamped all the lighting inside.

[Katrina/10]

I always thought those things were cool, that one was lucky to have survived the years. Got to have a good space to put it in, though.

[CSHADES]

It does take up a lot of real estate. It is 9 ft long and 6 ft high. The work bench is 28 in deep.

[Katrina/10]

I've seen some of those fully refinished, it'll make a great art deco accent to your room!

[joedoh]

wow you can see what a cool bar it will make already.

[CSHADES]

so this is what I started with. When I bought it, the guy told me when he found it the cabinets were sitting outside in the dirt and the work bench was in the shop. I ended up replacing the bottom 4 inches of the cabinets and the bottom shelf. The work bench top was actually very straight and dent free. I had to wire brush the rust off and sand it until it was clean and shiny. The peg board that mounts behind the bench was damaged pretty heavily. The peg board had a 4 inch hole in the center that was poorly made by drilling small holes in a circle and then cut out. I cut out the damaged part and welded in a patch but was not happy with the result. You can see the patch right in the center in the rusty area. I also ended up making a new toe kick for the front of the work bench because over the years it had been beat up badly from moving it and what ever else they did to it. The good news was the it gave me an excuse to buy a spot welder to attach the new toe kick to the bench and some of the other pieces.

[CSHADES]

so after welding on the peg board and trying to heat shrink it I decided it was not going to look as good as I wanted. so I made the decision to build a new one. Take a guess at how many holes are in the pegboard. It was an experience building it being my metal brake has a capacity of 50 inches, it will actually do 52 inches and this thing was 54 inches wide. I ended up bending it with a bit of damage on the ends that I hammered and dollied out. The finished product came out nice. I also rebuilt the original light fixtures up inside the top. the middle fixture I blasted, painted, new wiring and ballast. The outside fixtures were blasted, painted, new wiring, ballast and sockets. I tested everything on the bench to make sure it worked before final assembly.

[mongocanfly]

dang that's a lot of holes.....lets see.....7÷4+9×23+320×1.5-153.875.. that equals 697 holes...wow....
looking good...

[CSHADES]

You are close there are actually 17 x 40 = 680 holes. So I started priming, sanding and doing body work.

[mongocanfly]

darn it..I was never good at new math...my old eyes keep seeing 41 across and 17 down....o well...it looks great anyway...and that's still a lot of holes

[joedoh]

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

darn it..I was never good at new math...my old eyes keep seeing 41 across and 17 down....o well...it looks great anyway...and that's still a lot of holes

not only do I see 41 x17 on the new board, I see 41 x 17 on the old board... I must have borrowed your old eyes.

[mongocanfly]

^^^so its not just me?^^^...haha....and that's not counting the 3 big holes at the bottom of the panel...41x17=697+3=700......

[Advanced Design]

Very cool project. Tagging along for the rest.

[CSHADES]

Not only did I drill the 680 holes in the board I had to go back over every one of them and deburr each hole on both sides. So basically I drilled the holes three times plus the outside mounting holes. So after days of sanding I was finally ready to lay down some paint. At this point the deadline of Christmas was getting close so I started taking off early from work, I was leaving work between 2-3 pm and working until 9 pm every night and 8am-8pm on the weekends to get this thing done. So when I painted these parts I started laying the white on about half way through I figured out that I was going to be short on white and it was Saturday night. Luckily the parts store that mixes paint was open on sunday and they mixed me some more so I did get it done on Sunday. but it messed up my schedule for finishing this.

[CSHADES]

getting down to the final days before Christmas. The Gf asked me if I was going to have it done for Christmas and I couldn't tell her yes or no that is how close I was cutting it. Started on the cabinet tops, stripped, primed and painted the insides.

[CSHADES]

I stayed with the long days. got the cabinet tops, workbench bottom and top painted red.

[CSHADES]

It was time to get the white on the bench and cabinet doors. I painted these on the Tuesday before Christmas.

[CSHADES]

After getting that stuff painted I still had the shelves left to do. When I bought this thing it had 3 shelves in it. I found 1 on ebay and won the auction. I contacted the guy I bought the shelf from to see if he had any other parts for the workstation. The only parts he had were 7 more shelves. I ended up buying all of the shelves from him. So on Thursday before Christmas I was blasting the shelves. When I got home on Friday I epoxy primed and painted them. Too bad I thought I only needed 8 shelves, I ended up doing the rest later.

[CSHADES]

So on the Saturday before Christmas I needed to get it assembled. so I started putting the chrome on. The chrome around the ad glass snaps on to a channel that is spot welded to the top. It was a pain to get the chrome on with new chrome, primer, paint and clear coat conspiring against me. I finally ended up scraping the channels down to bare metal and then using a rubber hammer and a tape covered dolly to pound them on. The big pieces of chrome went on fairly easy with some universal type clips.

[Advanced Design]

Looking good! Where did the chrome come from?

[CSHADES]

If you look at the first 2 pics on this thread you can see the chrome was on the workstation when I got it. I pulled it off right when I started working on it in sept. the chrome guy that I use is about 2 hours away from here. He always has a booth set up at the local swap meets that I go to. So the end of Sept he is always at the Jefferson swap meet, so I took the pieces and gave them to him. I picked the finished parts up the day after thanksgiving.

[joedoh]

lookin good!

[CSHADES]

So Saturday afternoon started the assembly after taking out the Royal Crown cola cooler and the modern cabinets and counter tops. Got to figure out what to do with the cooler now. Started putting parts together which was fun because the thing was apart when I got it. The worst part was the sliding door that locks up the pegboard area. I worked on assembly the rest of the day on Saturday and got back on it sunday morning. The GF was not pleased that I was still working on it instead of helping her get the house ready for the18 people that were coming the next day. I asked her what she wanted me to do leave it half done? We use the diner for these big dinners because of the amount of seating. The first 2 pics are trying to get the stupid door down in the tracks the correct way.

[joedoh]

looks beautiful! I know its already done and all but even seeing it at this point, that should make for a nice bar!

and are you messing with us? insisting on 40x17 holes? on your latest picture can count 41 across and 17 high. is one line of 17 painted on and you are having a laugh?

[CSHADES]

You are funny. I went home after you guys were saying that you counted 17 x 41 lines of holes and counted the holes in the old one and there is still 17 x 40 rows. Thanks for the praise, it does make a great back bar.