On the intersection of racing and public health

Today certainly did not go as I thought it would.  Out of all the conflicting news reports and constant updates on sports leagues shutting down or schools closing their doors, I found myself at an odd crossroads of my racing life and my education---one that I did not anticipate intersecting.

For those who don’t know, I completed my master’s degree in Public Health a few years ago, specifically studying Community & Behavioral Health and Epidemiology, the latter of which studies how diseases move through populations.  I have worked in various parts of the public health field since I graduated, and it’s something I’m very passionate about.

Combining this with my love of racing, I felt it important that I put up some sort of blog post to add some perspective to this whole bizarre situation that unfolded today in Australia.  And to be honest, I’m still a bit confused and disappointed over how it devolved to this.

For those who hadn’t followed along, today’s roller coaster of a “Will they or won’t they” began earlier when a member of the public tested positive for COVID-19.  That person shared the same hotel as several Formula 1 team members, one of whom turned out to have contracted the virus.  This set off a chain reaction of fear and assumed responsibility which culminated in prolonged radio silence from F1, teams packing up and leaving, mixed media messages and frustrated racegoers.

Teams waited by the paddock, unsure whether their job would be to compete for a Grand Prix victory or pack everything up.  Fans at the track stood in queues at closed gates as the screaming V10 of the F1 two-seated lapped Albert Park. 

As I’m sure you know, the race was eventually canceled, and I imagine more Grands Prix will fall in the aftermath.  But from a public health perspective, what on Earth just happened?

Before we delve too deeply into this, I want to define a few things.  These are all questions I’ve been asked online and in-person, and it helps put this decision into perspective.

At its broadest, people around the world are getting very sick from a virus that is spreading quickly all over the place.  It has killed scores of people in China, the Middle East, Italy and elsewhere.  New cases are popping up constantly, and you’re seeing cancellations as a result.

Why this is such a big deal revolves around the culprit to all of this:  a novel coronavirus.  Coronaviruses aren’t new.  The name describes a known shape or type of virus, “haloed” by glycoproteins and attachment proteins (which help the virus grab onto cells).  But this particular one is new.  And that’s a problem.

When we follow diseases through populations, monitoring is good enough that we can track how these sicknesses evolve.  We can usually discern when one mutates and creates another dominant form.  It’s why and how we predict flu strains for the yearly flu shot (since influenza mutates like crazy, always changing its attachment proteins).  But this particular kind of coronavirus didn’t evolve from something else, it literally popped up.

Specifically, epidemiologists can trace it to a market in Wuhan, China, where the first cases arose.  Whether it jumped to humans from bats or from another animal, we know that this was not originally a human disease.  From there, the race began to try to identify it.

That’s where the next definition comes in.  Given the symptoms that accompanied infection with this virus, scientists classify this as a SARS virus, which stands for “Severe acute respiratory syndrome.”  Yes, that’s the same general SARS that made news a few years ago, but this time the thing that is causing it is a lot more potent.  Because this virus causes a form of SARS, it is classified as SARS-CoV-2 (COronaVirus).  This is only the second time a SARS-causing virus has arisen in modern times.

The disease that CoV-2 causes goes by the name COVID-19, or COronaVIrus Disease (first documented in) 2019, and its attack is a bit unique.

Unlike more common diseases, this new-to-science coronavirus is quite contagious.  Very small viral loads seem to be necessary to transmit it (in other words, you don’t need to be exposed to a lot of virus particles to get infected).  People spread it effectively, although we still don’t totally know how its transmitted (or if it’s different than the usual hitching a ride on droplets coughed out or sneezed).  It seems to be able to survive for long periods of time in the air and on surfaces.  And more worryingly, people seem to be contagious for a long time both before and after they show symptoms of the disease.

For those that do get sick, there are further concerning differences here.  More susceptible populations seem to get hit by COVID-19 really hard.  Their rates and lengths of hospitalizations are higher than the usual flu or colds, and of those hospitalizations, a higher percentage require placement in the Intensive Care Unit.  And a large number end up dying.

It’s an odd mixture of a disease that our body isn’t prepared to fight, that we don’t know a ton about, and that we aren’t ready to treat.  And because there’s still so much science doesn’t know, there’s palpable concern.  How long are we contagious before symptoms set in?  How much exposure do you need to get sick?  On and on.

It would be one thing if this were fairly localized, but COVID-19 spread rapidly.  Usually in an epidemiological setting we talk about a troubling disease doubling its number of cases every six days or so.  Start with 100 cases, then six days later you have 200, then 400, then 800, then 1600, then 3200, then 6400, then 12,800 and so on.  All in a month and a half.

But in the worst-hit parts of this outbreak, doctors saw a doubling every two to three days.  In the above example, your 100 cases turn into 12,800 in a little over two weeks.  Add in two more weeks, and you’re at nearly half a million.  Add in six more days, and you’re just shy of a million.  All in a month from just 100 cases (which, for example, could be a small close-knit group like the F1 paddock).

It can be easy at this point to think that everyone is freaking out and saying we’re going to die, but this is an important distinction to make, especially when you keep that quick, exponential increase in mind.

This disease is not massively lethal---at least in certain populations.  For most healthy and young people, this will seem like a bad flu, if that.  Then they’ll be done with it.  But the problem is, all the time they’re sick, and for quite a while before, they’re still contagious.  They’re still spreading this virus to others (and remember, it doesn’t take much).  But while those young people may be fine, older people are absolutely clobbered by COVID-19.

People who have weakened immune systems are sitting ducks for this disease.  People who have breathing difficulties may not survive a sickness that includes extremely severe breathing problems.  

When we talk about the lethality of this disease, it’s not for the average person, it’s for vulnerable populations.  In fact, the very nature of public health doesn’t deal with the individual patient, it deals with the public as a whole.  So this is not crying wolf, it’s recognizing that people may get this disease through no fault of their own, and it may kill them.

That’s where we start to get back to the racing bit.

Think about what a Grand Prix is from a human standpoint.  You have people from all around the world gathering in a central location.  You have a hundred thousand potential carriers, some of which may be actual carriers who are in the stage of the disease where they’re not showing symptoms, but they’re still a flamethrower of viral particles.  You have a finite number of bathrooms where people funnel through, cramming into high humidity environments and close quarters even for the briefest of times.  Then they all leave and go back to where they’re from, all over the globe.  Hopefully given what you now know about this virus, you can start to see the issues.

So when the decision had to be made, it wasn’t to protect the people in the stands, per se, it’s to look at the broader picture of what happens next.  Epidemiologists don’t think the entire crowd in Melbourne will get sick.  They don’t think they’re all going to die.  But they know that even if a tiny subset of attendees harbor this virus, it’s only a matter of time and math before you get a massive spread across loads of populations---some of which don’t have any cases of COVID-19 yet.

Others may point to the fact that this disease will spread regardless, but there is still a big benefit in actions like this.  Take a look at Italy right now as an example of what can happen in an unprepared population:  Cases are exploding, hospitals are well over capacity, triage doctors are losing patients who are fighting for extremely limited resources.  This isn’t a knock on Italy, but they’re a prime example of why preventive measures and “flattening the curve” are so important.

Imagine a classic bell curve, which is highest in the middle and tapers off at the edges.  Now imagine another curve that stretches much wider than that bell curve, but it’s not near as high.  Then imagine a dotted line that is just above the lower curve’s peak and well below the peak of the higher one.  This dotted line represents the total capacity of all of the hospitals and doctors in a given population.

Unabated, the disease swells quickly and has a tall peak, well above that dotted line.  As a result, there are far more who need care than the hospitals can accommodate, because all of these cases are happening at once.

If, however, you can flatten that curve, the peak always stays below that full capacity line.  Cases will still happen, but they’re so spread out, there are never overwhelming to the healthcare industry.

That’s what these types of delays and postponements do.  They stop those easy ways for the virus to spread.  They keep populations apart from each other for as long as possible, which lets the inevitable cases play out while the preventable ones are delayed.  Even so, some of those people may get the disease anyway, but if they do, it will be at a later date when the number of cases may not be as high.  Or it may happen at a time when we have better treatment options or possibly even a vaccine.

Public health can be frustrating in this way, since we so often deal with risk rather than concrete guarantees.  People want to know whether or not they’ll get it, not that their risk is lower or higher in certain situations.  They will point to exceptions to the rule, or they will outright not believe what they’re being told.  But actions like the cancellation of the Australian Grand Prix are the right thing to do from a public health standpoint.  And remember, public health isn’t about the individual, it’s about the bigger picture.  In other words, it isn’t about you.  Nor should it be.  The healthcare system is for “me,” but public health deals with “us.”  It deals with prevention instead of treatment.

Thankfully, and perhaps scarily, the world is perched on the edge of the transition between prevention and mitigation, from saying “We have to stop this” to saying “We’ll just have to manage the inevitable.”  And ideally, we want to keep it that way for as long as possible.  Seeing sports canceled can be frustrating and heartbreaking as a fan and a consumer, but we’re trying to do something now that will pay dividends later.  You, as a healthy fan, might have been fine either way.  But by delaying now and flattening the curve of cases, your older loved one might actually be around next season to watch your sport of choice with you.  A friend at work who may be immunocompromised because of a medication he or she is taking may not die unexpectedly in two or three months.

We can’t know the benefits of doing this now, but we can sure see the frustration and the immediate shock waves that these decisions sent through the sports world.  We can see the disappointment and the amount of money lost on tickets that won’t be refunded, and it can be easy to fixate on that.

But the public health professional in me is heartened by the fact that so many leagues and organizations worldwide stood united today and took sweeping, definitive, preventive action.  They saved lives today, and we don’t (and won’t) even know it.  They did what was right, no matter how much I was thrilled to get F1 and IndyCar back this weekend.  F1 may have had an awful time doing it, they may have dropped the ball on countless occasions today, and they were woefully unprepared, but in the end,  they made the right decision.

So while I may be some random person rambling on the internet, please take this disease seriously.  Do your research.  Ask me any questions you’d like.

It may be frustrating to you in the here-and-now, but those most at-risk for developing this disease will thank you later.  Whether it’s your grandparent, your aging neighbor, a friend fighting cancer, or in my case, my own mother, these are the medically vulnerable people we’re trying to help.  And believe it or not, delaying events like this helps us do that until SARS-CoV-2 passes (and it will pass eventually).  So let’s do our part now, and later we can watch all the races and games with them that we want.

A Maxwell isn't a Maxwell when it's just an engine and frame on wheels

After a long time away from both this blog and The Garage, I'm happy to report that I'm back on track with both.  So much has changed in my life in the past few months (mostly for the better), but it hasn't been until recently that I've gotten back to work on the Maxwell and my other projects.

The left side back moulding on the old body.

Skipping all the non–car-related stuff, excitingly, the Maxwell is much closer to having a body again.

As you may recall, when I last left this blog in dormancy, I had been working on transferring the moulding pieces from the rusted hunk of the original lower body onto the new pieces of sheet metal that I fabricated.  The moulding surrounds the bottom of the door area to the front seats (since the 1910 Q3 didn't have physical doors up there), and they're separate metal pieces that flare out at the top and halfway act as supports for the front seat (and a visual coupler from the vertical angles of the extreme front of the body with the concave back half).

My issues were twofold in making the transplant:  First, the mouldings were secured to the old body with difficult-to-remove rivet-like pieces that were very flush with the body (I would later have to grind these down with a Dremel from the inside).  Second, I didn't have a very effective way of hooking them onto the new body since I wouldn't be using the existing horizontal holes.

These are some of the rivets (seen from the back) on the
right side of the front seat crosspiece.

Instead, I had experimented with using the countless vertical holes that dotted the pieces.  I drilled through the new body before placing nails through the holes from below.  After clamping and adjusting, I soldered around them before cutting off the excess and then smoothing the whole thing.  This proved fairly solid, especially when I applied solder into other gaps, but solder doesn't always hold, especially during vibrations.

So I finally bit the bullet and bought a hand rivet gun, hoping to use it to secure both the mouldings and the crosspieces for the front seat support.

The spirit had moved me after inspecting the old body, noting the seven rivets on each side of the crosspieces and seeing that the outer heads had been smoothed over with some sort of filler 105 years ago.  This would still preserve my goal of fixing the car without cutting corners and welding, and it would avert the crisis of overpowering the metal by burning right through it while attempting a weld.

Right back moulding now free.

I initially bought both 1/4"-long rivets and 1/8", but for the moulding, 1/8" is the perfect thickness.   (The diameter was 3/16", by the way.)  This may prove to be too thick for the crosspieces, but maybe I'll put a second piece of metal on top of the joint to increase the pressure.

The rest of the process has been very smooth, though.  The driver's side (which is right on the Maxwell) is completely done and smoothed, and I've presently affixed the front piece on the passenger side.  I've managed to free the last piece, and hopefully tomorrow I'll get that measured and riveted.

The whole endeavor has been somewhat tedious, but it's extremely exciting to see the pieces of this metallic jigsaw puzzle fall into place.  With the actual moulding in hand, though, I can figure out how far the lowest point of the cutout stays straight (which is easy to bend).  That allows me to hang the piece on the metal, making sure the top flare is perfectly even with the top of the body.

Right lower body ready to be cut to shape.

From there, I can pencil around the bottom of the piece, roughly noting where the spine of the metal bend needs to occur.  Then I come out about half an inch (to allow for the lip), and I'll bend a few inches at a time, shaping and finessing the angle with a ball-peen hammer.  I then check the fit and hammer down any high points until the tops are level, and then I can mark the holes for the rivets.

After the piece is secured, then I use a Dremel to smooth down the rivet heads.  A little bit of filler and primer completes the look of a perfectly smooth piece, and it now looks like the part has always been attached.

Cut and bent, holes drilled, ready for the moulding.

I must say, I absolutely loved seeing the driver's side panel sitting on the car.  For the first time since I set the old body on it long ago just for looks, the old girl seems like an actual automobile both in form and function.  It's been a century since smooth, sturdy pieces of metal separated the inside from the outside, helping to create the car's identity, differentiating it from every other pair of frame rails out there.  For when you take a step back and see the car as a whole instead of the individual parts, a Maxwell isn't a Maxwell when it's just an engine and frame on wheels.

Instead it's just another anonymous vehicle borne in the era of horseless carriages, when the wheels numbered four and the a round steering apparatus had replaced a tiller.  It was part of an ever-standardizing design that had the driver sitting on the right (to see the edge of the dirt roads) with pedals for movement and braking dancing at his feet.

The completed right side with the incomplete left, behind.

But aside from the giveaway "Maxwell" written in script across the radiator, the car does not assume its true identity until the shapely body sits behind the firewall.  The cutouts at the front, the relatively novel doors on the rear, the space for three people in the backseat that gives the Q3 its number, all of it combined makes a Maxwell a Maxwell.  The brass filigree is merely a boast, confirming a growing status that the little car from Tarrytown—which would later become a Chrysler—was an eager player in the automobile market.

But instead of factory workers bolting everything into place, I'm doing it myself, alone in The Garage.  And instead of the work signalling an emergence into the working world, today it signifies an emergence back into the light, back onto a road that differs greatly from the last one this little car saw 80 years ago.

Sitting patiently in the rafters for 50 years

It's days like today that reaffirm my love of The Garage.  Sometimes, unexpectedly, that old stone structure springs something on me that I couldn't have seen coming, even if it fell from the rafters.  Despite the never-ending battle against dust, the constant necessity for cleaning and the bevy of rusty implements that always threaten to drain me of my blood, sometimes The Garage just blows me away.

The magneto gear.  Note the cutouts.

I have been extremely busy working up there lately, namely on the Maxwell, but partially on cleaning and organizing.  I put the mag on the car in a dry run only to learn that I was missing a crucial piece that marries the magneto shaft to the magneto gear (which is inside the crankcase).

This is a very unique part, and I'm absolutely positive that we have nothing like it.  Held in with a D-shaped pin, the little metal sleeve fits around the magneto shaft and is held onto it by the mysterious nut and split washer that I've mentioned before.  The little sleeve has two wings on the end closest to the mag, and these fit into notches on the center sleeve of the larger magneto gear.  Between these wings and the D-shaped pin, this is what allows the spinning of the car's engine to spin the magneto and thus distribute the spark.

The magneto shaft with the nut and split washer.

A World War II vet in California graciously sent one of his to me from his Maxwell Model G, but thankfully it's the same size.  So with that, I turned it over to my father.  He took it to some men who can use their machines not only to replicate this part but to train others in the machine's operation.  It's a win-win!

In the last couple of weeks those men have scanned the piece into a CAD program, measuring it to the third decimal point before using another calibrated machine to corroborate their numbers.  They were actually impressed at how this small, well-machined piece could have been made 100 years ago, so they're going to try a couple of different methods to recreate it---I'll let you know what they find if they are successful.

In the meantime, I learned that the Maxwell spark plug wires (which should be 7mm wires, but can be nine if need be) were brown, not oak like I originally thought.  Using some old shoestrings, I figured out how much of the wire is needed to reach the four plugs as well as the coil.  Assuming I want some extra, here's what I found:

• The first two spark plugs require 36 inches of wire to reach them.
• The back two plugs need 28 inches of wire apiece.
• The coil wire, of which there is only one, can be 20" in length.
• This adds up to 148 inches in total.

Figuring out the distance to the coil was tricky, though, since I didn't know where the coil attached to the car.  Consulting another member of the Maxwell Registry, I found that the part I figured to be the coil holder was, in fact, the coil holder, and it attaches using two bolts to the front hole on the left firewall support bracket.  The top hole goes on top of the bracket's front hole, and the bottom part of the bracket sits on the bottom lip of the frame rail.  This way, the coil is hidden under and angled floor board and is not that far away from the magneto.

This is what the left rear frame looked like.

I'm also waiting on the measurements from this same gentleman on the Maxwell's oil tank.  Holding just two quarts of oil, the tank is relatively small and shouldn't be hard to make, but my lack of a sight gauge is a bit difficult.  If nothing else, I'm thinking of taking cardboard and mocking up a tank to see how it fits in the engine bay, and I can adjust the measurements from there.  The original tank was sweat soldered together, which is something I presently don't know how to do, but we can work on that later.  If I have to weld it, I'll weld it, but I'd prefer not to (given that there isn't a weld on any other part of the car).

I should qualify that last statement, I suppose.  There are now welds on one part of the car, and I'm fairly proud of it.

The plate is now gone, so I can make a new one.

The left rear corner of the frame, to the keen-eyed who may remember, was incredibly rusty and full of holes, and one of those mysterious plates that may have been used to square the frame was nearly gone.  After considering my options, I figured that I could not only fill the holes but also replace the plate with some leftover sheet metal from the body I made last summer.

I measured the remnants of the old plate before knocking it out, finding it was a triangle that was six inches long on one side and seven on the other.  The longer of the two rested against the rearmost crosspiece, but not smoothly.  There had been some repairs done sometime in the past to this area, so I had to make cut-outs in the new piece with a Dremel tool after tracing around the obstructions.  This was mostly trial and error, but eventually I got a suitable union between the two, so I clamped it in place and began the welding process.  Using relatively small rods with a medium-to-low setting on the welder, I was able to fill in all the holes and, by doing so, affix the new plate to the frame rails.

The new plate with cutouts.

I used this opportunity to fill other deeper holes in the back half of the frame, and after grinding it down and laying some smoothing filler over it, the entire back half of the frame looked brand new!  Even though it will be covered by the lower body, I felt this was an important thing to do not just for aesthetics but also for the strength of the metal.  Hopefully my work will stand the test of time, but that remains to be seen.

With the holes filled, for the first time in over a year I put the back half of the lower body back on the car.  Along with the fenders, which were already in place, I put the new front halves of the lower body onto the car and stepped back to admire the gestalt.  For the first time in a long time, the Maxwell was truly looking like a car again.

Here's after the first (messy) round of welding.

So while I wait for the integral components to getting it running (the wires, the oil tank measurements, etc.), I thought I would tidy up some more of the bodywork---namely the running boards.  By focusing on these key pieces of the car, I would finally have an idea about exactly where the fenders sit in relation to the frame.  A correctly-installed running board would allow me to correctly line up the fenders and finally get them hooked to the car (instead of just sitting/hanging on the tires and fender supports).

From my research and from other Maxwell owners, the running boards were either ash or oak, 3/4" thick.  Using the fenders and the arm that holds the board, I determined it should be nine inches wide.  After fiddling with the fenders and getting them lined up (which was tricky without hooking them on), I estimated that the running board should be around 48 inches long, though this was meant to be an overestimate.

So all I had to do was call up the local lumber yard and order the wood, right?  If only.

Done for now!

They first quoted me a very cheap price for pine, which was in the ballpark of $7.00.  I told them that I need ash or oak.

"We don't carry ash," they said.

"What about oak?"

"How long do you need it?"

"I need two pieces around 48 inches in length."

"We don't have that size.  You can either get two feet longer or two feet shorter than that."

"How much is the longer one?"

"That will be $80.00."

Ouch.  Needless to say, I quickly said no to that.  That was a ridiculous amount for something that is a relatively common building material.  So I called the local Menard's for the same order, which they quoted at $62 of oak (they didn't have ash, either).  That was still a bit high for me, so we looked online and found a website that had poplar (which was commonly used for the floorboards, not the running boards) for $30.  This was going to be our plan, and we would probably order it later in the day.

So in the meantime I went back to work in The Garage cleaning a seldom-seen corner that houses a cabinet full of parts from a closing store my grandfather acquired back in the '50s.

My father soon got home from work, and I told him of my troubles at ordering the wood for the boards, and I asked if he could help me line up the fenders to double check my measurements.  As we stood there between the Maxwell and the old Farmall tractor, we began looking above us for some reason, perhaps out of boredom or curiosity.

Incredibly, directly above our heads was a beautiful, dusty, dark board stretched across the tops of several rafters.  Buried beneath a pile of plywood, chrome mouldings from old cars and my father's childhood toboggan, this long, broad board stared back at us.  Extremely out of place with the other pieces of wood around it, neither my father or I had ever noticed this nearly perfect piece of hardwood, looking down like the Cheshire Cat smiling from a tree branch high above our heads.

I climbed up onto the wheel of the tractor and slowly maneuvered the board from under the pile, careful not to upset a late '50s Oldsmobile grille that rested quietly on the object of interest.

When I climbed down, this amazingly out-of-place piece of lumber stood upright, propped against the tractor for us to inspect its dusty surface.  It looked like it was oak, and this was confirmed after I cleaned off all the dust and bird droppings from its wooden skin.  It was 3/4" thick, one foot wide and six feet tall.  It was exactly what I needed for a strong running board, and we were left dumbfounded by its presence.

I took it outside where my father and I cut it down to size.  One end had a split right in the center of the board, so I cut this end off when I sought to make the board 48 inches in length.  Improbably, what I just cut off was actually a very suitable piece of wood for the angled floor board that covered the magneto and the coil.  Even more amazing, after I measured how much of that floor board I would have to remove, I found that the split would be completely cut off with less than half an inch to spare.  It was like this random piece of oak was made for the Maxwell, sitting patiently in the rafters for 50 years while it gathered dust and waited for the day I would call upon it to become part of the old car.

Perhaps my grandfather saw the same potential in this wood that I did, which is why it was placed in the back of the garage nearest to the Maxwell.  Perhaps he put it up there with no purpose in mind, but the voice in our heads that told my father and I to look up today knew that we would get the message now.

I cut the running board to its correct width, and in doing so I was left with a narrow sliver of oak that can also be used as a regular floor board when that time comes.  Amazingly, only a few inches of this piece of oak will not be used, and I'm still blown away whenever I think about it.

Before I left The Garage today, I walked with my newly-hewn lumber and placed it on the car.  For the first time since 1910, the little Maxwell got a new running board, and damn did it look good!  I positioned the fenders to rest on top of the board, and in doing so I saw them slide a bit closer to their correct location---something I will measure and mark and photograph before I begin the attaching process.  Then I will take those measurements and apply them to the other side, whenever I get around to finding another piece of suitable wood.

I stood back to admire our work, and I thanked whatever or whoever put that board up there.  I folded up some rags and took off my gloves, setting them gently on the red paint of the Farmall before turning to leave.  As I did, I shot one more glance skyward, partly out of curiosity, partly out of amazement.

Hanging four feet from the board we just discovered was another one just like it.

Letting the cauldron boil and bubble the rust away

What a busy last few weeks it has been, toiling away in the old stone Garage.  In a very short time, the Maxwell looks like a car again, and I'm starting to realize that this folly of an adventure may actually lead to a working car.  There are many unknowns, but it's wonderful to see.

I'll update you more completely in a future post, but I want to touch on a topic I've mentioned in passing several times this summer without a proper explanation:  Electrolytic rust removal.  Yes, I can hear the droves of people (probably all four of you) heading to the exits at this point, but stick with me!  I promise this can be a helpful topic.  If nothing else, hang around to see how many times I've shocked myself by trying to mix electricity with water...

Here's the test item hanging from the board before cleaning.

My delving into electrolytic rust removal actually started a while back, after reading about the topic on countless restoration websites.  They say it's a hands-off way of removing all of the rust from the surface of metal without the messy grinding, naval jelly, WD40 or other wives' tales of how to get something clean.

Let me preface this by saying that the process works, and it works really well.  But how?

I don't want to bore you with a sciency explanation of what regular, red rust is and why it's bad, because believe me, I could (and I would probably be the only one enjoying it).  In order for you to understand electrolysis, though, you have to know some things in a metal nutshell.

The point is, after getting weathered over time, a chemical reaction takes place at the surface of a metal object, and the process of the metal being eaten away leads to rust forming from the new compound---iron oxide.  This happens when metal is exposed to water and carbon dioxide.  The iron acts as an anode, which means it gives up negatively charged electrons, while other parts of it act as a cathode, which is the opposite.  This is what usually can be brushed off or flakes off when the part is handled.  Underneath is basically newly-formed magnetite, or "Black rust," which is what we're working to reverse (I swear this knowledge will come in handy later).

Here's my initial setup with rods and wires. It's not high tech.

In most cases, when water hits the metal, whether through rain or humidity in the air, the water and carbon dioxide that makes up a portion of our atmosphere (0.04%) combine to make an acid.  The oxygen component of the acid reacts with iron and oxidizes it (which means that the iron loses electrons.  The opposite to this is called reduction, which is gaining of electrons).  The electrons go from anode to cathode, or from negative to positive.  Think of it like how one end of a magnet is only attracted to the opposite end of another magnet.  Like charges repel, opposite charges attract.

So, once we know this, how can we reverse the process?  The metal underneath the outside corrosion should still be okay (unless it's really rusted all the way through), so we need to remove the rust without hurting the underlying metal.

So let's use electricity and water---two things that you normally shouldn't combine, but since this is The Garage, why not?

Alright, ready to connect!

To set up your electrolysis, you'll need a five gallon bucket, five gallons of water, some washing soda (this is different than baking soda), some metal wires, a battery charger and some pieces of metal that you don't mind getting really rusty.

After filling the bucket with five gallons of water, add five tablespoons of washing soda and mix it in.  Washing soda is not baking soda.  The former is sodium carbonate and the latter is sodium BIcarbonate.  Long story short, the former makes the process go faster than the latter, but if you can't find washing soda, baking soda will work, just not as quickly.

Using the wire, connect all the pieces of sacrificial metal together in a series, but do NOT close the loop, as your battery charger won't appreciate it (one of many ways that you can upset your charger).  Set these pieces of metal (rebar works extremely well and is quite cheap) into the water, but make sure one of them sticks up above the water so you can connect the battery charger.

The next step is to submerge the item you want to de-rust in the solution.  It is extremely important that you don't let the object touch any of the metal rods, or else your battery charger will get very angry (thankfully this is easy to avoid depending on how you wire your rods together, which I swear is not a euphemism).

The way that I first did this was to set a piece of wood across the bucket (since wood does not conduct electricity), then hang my part from it using a separate piece of wire.  You can also submerge your metal part into the water if part of it stays above the water line.  Then you can clip the battery charger here instead of the wire.

Either way, when you're ready to start, hook the positive lead from the charger to one of the rods (or to the wire connecting them).  You need to make sure all of your connections are tightly wound to the rods and the object, or else this won't work.

The negative lead will attach to the object/the wire suspending the object.  You can check the connections in the rods by lightly brushing the negative lead against each one to see if there's a spark.  If not, readjust the wires and make sure they are wound tightly around the rods.  It may also help to run the portion of the rod where the wire wraps around it under a wire brush to make sure you have the cleanest contact possible.

When your connection is solid and the charger shows a current is flowing, you should notice tiny bubbles coming from the metal part and around the rods.  Congrats!  It's working!  But why?

By adding sodium carbonate to the water, you're giving the newly-made solution a way to carry ions between your anode and cathode, creating a current.  Sodium is positive, so it will move to the negative connection (the part), whereas the carbonate is negative, so it moves to the positive.  This helps create an environment where the black rust can be reconverted into iron.

So once the part is cooking, you can leave it for several hours, and it should be fine.  Just as a heads-up, use only regular iron pieces in the solution.  Trying to de-rust any plated metal or stainless steel or anything won't work very well, and it will release dangerous gases (which are never good).  Also, don't spend a ton of time breathing in the gases from the regular process, either, and avoid sparks or open flames while you're doing it, too.  The process won't suddenly explode, but why take a chance?

The pick head after it was taken out of the solution.

After the piece has been in the solution for a while, you should see its surface turn black in places, meaning that the process is actually working.  When you remove the part, IMMEDIATELY wipe the piece dry, removing that black coating and staving off the corrosion from starting right away.  You can even run the part under the wire brush after drying it off, and this should yield a brilliant, bare metal finish.  But know that this bare metal is again susceptible to rust, so either prime and paint the piece or oil it right away.

So has this worked for me?  Absolutely!  I tried cleaning a random pick head that I found in The Garage a while back.  It didn't have a handle, and it was rusty, so it seemed perfect for an experiment.  I hung it from a wire and dipped it in the solution, letting the cauldron boil and bubble the rust away.

Oh, hello Beale Brothers logo.

When the day was done, I removed the piece and wiped it dry, suddenly noting the wonderful manufacturer's logo on its side.  I had never been able to see it before!  From this information (and in true Garage fashion), I found that the pick was 100 years old and produced in Alton, Illinois, by the Beale Brothers Company, which ceased existence well before 1920.  Go figure!

I have also cooked several Maxwell parts in the solution, from the coil holder to the brake rods and exhaust manifold.  With each of these, I let the piece stay in the solution for several hours before wiping it off, running it quickly under the wire brush and priming it (except for the manifold, there).  I'm always amazed at what brilliantly shiny metal awaits under the black coating, and I know with certainty that rust will not suddenly spring up from under my primer and paint, since I eliminated nearly all of it in the process.

So yes, electricity and water together are normally dangerous, but as long as you pay attention and make sure your setup is sound beforehand, you will soon have the most thorough solution to rust problems, and it won't even require grinding, lathering on naval jelly or being covered in dust after wire-brushing the rust away.  This novella of a public service announcement was brought to you by Woodsie's Garage.

At the time using a giant, sparking machine from the 1960s

Just as the seasons slowly cycle around the calendar, so too does the school year that inevitably brings me back to summer.  The massive dichotomy of the stress and difficulty of school versus the casual, thoroughly enjoyable summer always gives me mixed emotions---I know that the wonderful freedom of break will allow me to get back in touch with myself and my true loves in life, but I also know that it will end sooner than I'd like.

It would be detrimental to sit and mope or dwell on the finite summer, since doing so guarantees that it will only pass quicker.  Instead, I choose to relax on my break by getting as exhausted as possible.  My mantra has always been to sleep when you have to, and in the meantime do everything you possibly can so that one will leave this summer tired (but in the best kind of "tired" possible).

That's why most nights at home I'm actually up later than when I'm at school, yet I continue to get up at the same time as during the academic year.  This is doable since I'm far more active than during med school, so the urge to nap always fails to creep up on me when I'm at home.

This year was awful, to put it simply.  But the purpose of this blog is not to waste your time reading about my troubles, it's to talk about cars and rust and history and racing.  What I will say is that I had several one-two punches throughout the semesters, for a while I grew quite resentful and disheartened with med school, and I have reassessed my desire to stay in this profession more than once.  I have also learned quite a bit about myself, I've grown as a person, and I've been attempting (but failing) to enjoy the single life for the first time in my adult existence.

This has also meant that my work in The Garage this summer is far more therapeutic than normal, and I'm excited for the progress that I hope to make in the ensuing weeks.  Some of that progress began just a few days ago.

Unfortunately, just as spring turns to summer, it seems that every winter The Garage's interior explodes in a mess of dust, clutter and disarray.  That usually translates to the first couple days of the summer being cleaning days, putting The Garage back together so I can use it regularly.

So after the initial sweeping, folding of scattered tarps, reorganizing of the work bench and getting stung by a wasp, I had to decide what I wanted to do first.

Magneto almost secured behind the engine.

Since the end of last summer, the Maxwell had been reassembled and tucked away quietly in the corner, buttoned up with its new body and freed transmission.  Today I brought the Splitdorf Model F magneto up and put it on the car, although through correspondence with a WWII vet out in California, I learned that it's missing a little piece that allows it to interface with the magneto gear (which runs off the engine spinning so that it can deliver spark in the correct order).  I'll either have to make one from my imagination or have him send me one of his so I can make a replica.  Either way that's probably doable, as I already have an idea of what the interface will look like.

Part of the reason I think this is doable is because of a random (and, for anyone else, probably unfulfilling) gift I received for Christmas:  A small welder.  Over the past few days I've been brushing up on my welding skills, although I admit they were never very developed in the first place.  Still, in the decade or more since my last welding experience---at the time using a giant, sparking machine from the 1960s---I imagine I've lost some of my touch for fusing metal together.

Here's my shoddy---but effective---setup.

So using very thin pieces of metal left over from when I made the lower body last year, I have been fiddling with the settings on the fun little welder.  Ideally this will prepare myself for when I join the body I made with the one that was made in the past.  I've burned through the material several times, but in the past two or three days I've gotten to where I can make pretty steady lines, and I've developed a much better feel for getting the arc going.  It doesn't help that the sticks I'm using are probably 30 years old and soggy, but once I get them hot they work just like they should.

Another project of mine has been running in the background of my garage work for the past couple of days.  After thinking about trying it with the '72 Honda's gas tank for a couple of years, I finally began to dabble in electrolytic rust removal.

And here's the "before" picture of the pick.

After seeing it the other day on Reddit, I set about to make my own setup in a five-gallon bucket.  I'll explain the full process in another post (this one's getting long), but it's been fascinating to see it work, both on a Maxwell part and on a pick head that I determined was over 100 years old.

Anywho, this summer is off to a good, productive start, and I hope to keep that up.  So stick with me as I get back into the swing of writing these blogs and working on the Maxwell (and my countless other projects).  In the meantime, take care and thanks, as always, for reading!

For the first time in ages, Mark Webber felt the wind blast into his face as he drove a race car

The end of a Formula 1 season is always a downer, but the promise of a new season and the inevitable joy that arrives with the next year's first practice session is often enough to get me through a long off-season.  But this year's campaign ends on a sad note with the departure of one of my favorite drivers, Mark Webber.

You know his story and his history, and you know that he's leaving the sport to become a proper number-one driver for Porsche in endurance racing.  But for one last time today, he was an F1 driver with a job to do, hurtling the most technologically advanced race cars on the planet around a soggy Interlagos circuit in the heart of Sao Paulo, Brazil.  Starting P4, Webber had one more outing to complete his time in single-seater Grand Prix racing, and he was brilliant.

He admitted on his slow approach to the starting grid that it would be tough for him getting in and out of the car before the race, but he assured his team that all would be fine once the visor was closed, when the world was shut out and the race had begun.

As the changeable conditions looked to shake up the grid, the foretold deluge of rain never came (the paddock got today's share yesterday when a monsoon delayed Q3 of qualifying by 47 minutes).  Mark dutifully put on a masterful charge, and even got a front row seat for the team actually making a mistake on one of Vettel's pit stops instead of his own.  Webber's car never burst into flames.  Its KERS never failed.  He didn't have to short-shift.  Yes, the delay on Vettel's stop delayed his own, but he exited the pits in relative reach of his teammate, securely chasing Sebastian from second place.

The team's assurances on the radio that everything was fine around him on the track meant that he could enjoy his last few laps in an F1 car, and Mark made the most of it.

Crossing the line for yet another podium in his lengthy career, Webber's time as a Grand Prix driver came to an end.  One cool-down lap, and that would be it.  He's not exactly sad to leave the sport, but he's sad to leave the challenge.

For so many years he plodded on with the hope that someday he would find himself on the top step of a podium, knowing he would have to endure long days in underpowered Minardis before he could live that dream.  He went from being mentored to being a role model, serving quite proudly as the head of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association.  As a senior member of an ever-changing sport, Webber's old school style and blunt honesty certainly won me over, especially as I watched him when he was a 20-something driving that gorgeous green Jaguar years ago.

He was a great driver, but like Jenson, he couldn't win.  Ever quick in a race car, Webber's talents were akin both to Nick Heidfeld's consistency and win rate.  Everyone loved him except the top step of the podium.

However, his ascent to Red Bull set him on a path that few could have ever dreamed.  A quiet, unassuming Aussie standing next to an equally respected, strong-chinned Scotsman in David Coulthard meant that Red Bull started the cogs in motion that would give them a dream team half a decade later.  But Coulthard's F1 swansong in Brazil saw him punted off the track on the first lap---something I vividly, sadly remember.  Webber's fate resulted in a much more beautiful, satisfying end.

As his seething hot RB9 coasted around the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace one last time, he furiously clawed at his gloves, yanking them off one at a time.  Then he lifted his iconic helmet---a symbol of one's existence as a driver---from his head and placed it in his lap.  For the first time in ages, Mark Webber felt the wind blast into his face as he drove a race car, providing an uninhibited view of the emotions unfolding before him.

He wanted to take it all in, and he wanted the fans to see his appreciation not through a common wave or a nod.  He wanted them to see him, to see on his face the passion that drove this steely Australian for so many years (and will continue to drive him toward that elusive victory at Le Mans).

He wanted to feel the wind and hear the engine, and he wanted to do so in his own, personal style.  There's no way he could have done that still buttoned up in his fire suit and helmet.  When the visor goes down, the world is gone.  But even when he's been in sole control of his car, it's never been just him out there.

Riding along in spirit have been all of his supporters over the years, all of his family and friends and those who respected him.  It's been all of his fans, many of whom have probably never seen him compete in person.  It's an entire world of racing that he never hears over the roar of his phenomenal engine.

Except for this time.  The helmet, and the symbol it represents, were removed, thus Mark Webber the human---not the race car driver---piloted his machine.  He could hear the cheers and see the crowd's strong, sincere farewell to a driver so revered and respected in F1 today.  The visor wasn't closed.  The world wasn't shut out.

Webber leaves Formula 1 on his own terms at the height of his career:  Two Monaco Grand Prix victories, nine wins, 13 poles and 42 podiums in 215 starts.  He leaves with a legion of fans thrilled to have witnessed a driver earn the success he had deserved for so long, and he'll be missed in our sport, especially by me.

Thanks for a great career, mate, and best of luck leading your team to Le Mans.

This was my realm. This was my sport.

It's been three months since I last wrote on this blog, but certainly not for lack of want.  If I had the time to devote to writing my thoughts and experiences, I would, but instead medical school has consumed my life even more so than last year.  And I didn't think that would be possible.

What started inauspiciously enough soon turned into the most relentless semester I have ever had in any form of schooling, and to complicate that, countless out-of-school things have been seriously affecting me as well.  Unfortunately there hasn't been a ton of good in my life lately, but I can't despair too much since I'm still alive and my family is also alive and healthy, too (the latter being rather pertinent in the last couple of months).

Still, the combination of school and life has made my existence pretty exhausting and lonely.  And as one thing builds upon another, I find myself spiraling downward into getting busier and busier, getting more and more determined to dig myself out of the hole of a setback that I'm in.  With that determination, though, comes worry.  For the first time in my life I find myself unable to get the worries of school out of my head.

I went to a football game on Saturday, yet all I could think about was school.  When I hang out with others (which doesn't happen terribly often given my schedule), my mind rarely wanders away from school for very long at all.  It's been awful and not something I can see myself shaking until this semester is over.  I hate it, and I hate that med school doesn't allow me the time to deal with things, so I just have to keep going, which really sucks.  But this blog post isn't supposed to be a complain-fest of sad stories and worried parlance.

One of the few bright spots in the past few months, as foolish as it may sound, has been racing.  I've mentioned before that it's one of the only things I have allowed myself to enjoy in school, and as problems and concerns have mounted this season, and as I've whittled more and more things away from my life, F1 has remained.

Nowhere was this more evident than the epic trip we took to Austin last weekend for my birthday to go to the US Grand Prix.  The journey and our stay in the Lone Star State was incredible, and so many times it seemed that the stars aligned for us to make for an even better, more unbelievable weekend.

We got tons of free stuff; we met wonderful people from all over the world; we stood next to Niki Lauda, Damon Hill and Johnny Herbert; we were personally shown an actual helmet worn by Ayrton Senna the year we were born (1988); I met one of my Twitter followers for the first time after he had been working on a vintage racecar; we got interviewed by the track entertainment personnel and were broadcast on the big screens in front of 113,000 people; we got to invade the track and made friends with some members of the Lotus F1 team (who gave us some brilliant team hats); and so much more.  I couldn't believe it.

I also couldn't believe that for over two days, I almost never thought of med school.  Heck, when we were at the track, it never crossed my mind.  Only in passing after we left the track each day did it ever enter my mind, and it was wonderful.  I felt like a person again.  I felt like an actual human being who could have passions and had a hobby to which I could devote time.  For once people were asking ME questions, and I was the only one who could answer them.  This was my realm.  This was my sport.

Looking back, I'm amazed at the transformation in me as I got nearer to Formula 1 last weekend.  Even on the way back, in the middle of the night several hours into our 14-hour drive, I was feeling so tired.  I was around 110 miles into my first or second stint, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to go much longer before switching with my friend.  While he slept in the backseat, the only other person awake in the car started asking me about F1.  We talked about "Rush", we talked about Bernie and his legacy, we discussed the recent history of some of the sport's luminaries, and we speculated on the future of Grand Prix racing.  In no time at all, I had taken us over 220 miles and was feeling rather refreshed.  For the first time in recent memory I could speak about something with confidence and excellent recall, and there wasn't a question I couldn't answer.

Over the course of the weekend I ended up driving over 1,100 miles, and I was beyond exhausted.  But it was worth it.  For one weekend I felt alive again, so strikingly refreshed that I could breathe in the sport's nuances and feel them in my blood.  I was no longer lonely, for once being completely surrounded by people who shared a common love with me that every other day of the year draws confused looks and erroneous comparisons.  It was one of the most memorable birthdays I've ever had.

Fast-forward one week later, though, and the teams are celebrating tonight in Sao Paulo, Brazil, capping off a long season whose twists and turns reach back to a warm March day in Australia.  They bid adieu to V8 engines, another year of Red Bull/Sebastian Vettel domination, Ross Brawn at Mercedes, and one of my favorite drivers.  Mark Webber's surprisingly emotional end to his Formula 1 career went by far too quickly, although he tried to prolong it as best he could.  But that's a whole other blog post.

Tonight I'm wondering what the next few months will be like for me, and it saddens me to know that something that was such a big part of what little life I had left is going to be absent for a third of a year.  I would be lying if I said that worries of the coming finals for med school aren't creeping into my head tonight as a result, but I'll live.  I always have.  The end of seasons always make me a little sad, but with everything else that has gone on this year, it's difficult not to take that loss a little harder.  Still, I can reflect on a brilliant season, and I can look forward to the changes that will hopefully shake up the sport for the better.  While I remain skeptical on some of them, others I think will only do good things for Formula 1.  Only time will tell.

So tonight I join hundreds of millions of F1 fans around the world to say goodbye to the 2013 season, hoping that my life next March will be accommodating enough to let it back into my everyday enjoyment.  But for two and a half more hours tonight it's still race day, and earlier this morning a Grand Prix was run in front of some of the most storied and passionate F1 fans in the world.  Life was good.  Let the offseason begin tomorrow.

I could enjoy many an afternoon in this wonderful place

It's been a busy last couple of weeks working on this car, so I'm happy to report that the little Maxwell is closer than it's ever been to starting.

When we last spoke, I had just rebuilt the oil pump and reattached it to a freshly-lubed engine.  The firewall was off the car for the first time in my life, as was the cowl.  Best of all, I had done a ton of research online and through talking with a couple of fellow Maxwell owners, thus filling in a spreadsheet I have created to address the lingering questions I have about the car.  At some point I'll plug all that information in here.

Anyway, the car has been cooperating relatively well after that steering mechanism quagmire.  I found plenty of bolts to match the ones missing from the top plates on the gearbox and crank case, and I've now smoothed and primed the entire engine.  This required special engine primer (that can withstand heat up to 500F) and the taping off of the bare areas on the crank case.  What's left is now a wonderfully homogeneous engine color (for the first time in at least half a century), and it's started to show me how brilliant the power plant will look when it's painted.

From the right side, cylinders 3 and 4 are primed.

Speaking of which, that's another thing I learned.  Contrary to the paint that currently adorns the T-heads, the color of the Maxwell Q3 engine was black.  This means the primer caps and the spark plug caps will stand out even more when they're re-brassed.  This also means choosing the spark plug wires themselves will be even more important---a decision with which I'm still wrestling as I type.  As of tonight, I'm between the classic "oak" lacquered finish with black and red dual tracers or the yellow with black and red tracers.

The hoses also need to be correct, and I feel like I shouldn't order the spark plug wires until I know what color the hoses will be (heaven forbid their colors clash).  My father believes some of the brass cars had black or even red hoses, but he's not sure; thus, I will have to investigate further.

Once I get the type of hoses and color of plug wires down, I'll measure out the lengths needed to get to the cylinders, plus a couple of other wires to go back and forth between the mag and the coil, the battery and the coil switch, and the coil and the coil switch.

On one of the engine mounts, I found original blue paint and
some red that apparently adorned the car after a re-spray.

Thankfully any modern 6-volt coil or battery one can buy today is much better than the kinds that were available in 1910, so then the issue is disguising them to look period.  Supposedly an empty can of Metamucil is the exact size of the old coil, so the modern coil can be hidden inside of it and mounted on the bracket (I just need to figure out where the bracket mounts).  The battery sits directly under the front passenger seat, I'd say.

A major issue I have is the absence of a Splitdorf coil switch.  This was the 1910 version of an ignition in a modern car.  One would keep the switch in the "Off" position until it was ready to start, then the switch would be moved to the "Battery" position.  Once the car was cranked and running, the switch would be moved to "Magneto" since the mag is powerful enough to keep the spark going, whereas it's not strong enough to start the car.

I have a strong suspicion I can fashion a coil switch that would work, but I'm not sure how to do that (and it would probably take a bit more electrical knowledge than what I currently have).  Ideally I want to get the correct Splitdorf one, but I know that's a slim chance.  In its stead I just want to get one that looks correct or is of a similar vintage.

Speaking of fashioning things, I talked to the head of the Maxwell Registry, Vern Campbell, and he's sending me pictures of his 1910 Q2's oil tank.  Mine is missing, but I believe it's something I'll be able to make at some point (or have it made).  It's a little rectangular tank that sits on the engine side of the firewall.  Rectangular at the top, the bottom comes to a point where a shutoff valve sends oil to the pump and then to the drip gauge on the dash.  It's painted black, and on the other side of the firewall, a brass and glass sight gauge shows the driver and passengers the oil level in the tank (the capacity of which is just two quarts).

While I can make the tank, the brass sight gauge will be a bit more tricky.  It wouldn't be impossible for me to make this, though, but it wouldn't be easy.  We'll see.

I also spoke to the only other person in the world (who I can successfully contact) who has a 1910 Q3 like mine.  Howard is a jovial man who was working in his garage when I called him.  He doesn't seem to do email, so he's going to take some pictures of his car for me and send them by mail.  I asked for him to take some pictures of the rear body/doors, and I think some of the engine, too.  Either way, anything he sends will provide a wealth of information that I currently don't have.  I never would have imagined seeing pictures of a car exactly like mine someday, so that will be thrilling.

Both heads and side panel painted, this time from the left side.

I finished making some new linkages for the brakes and clutch, and now those are on the car.  I continued smoothing and priming the frame, and I also WD-40'ed the heck out of the tube that runs across the frame to move the internal and external brakes.  I asked Campbell how he got his loosened up, and he chuckled, noting that was literally the only part of his car that he did not disassemble during restoration.  He did what I have done by spraying it and moving it around, and that loosened up the brakes.

Sadly, talking to Howard, it appears I'm missing the interior brake shoes to the car.  I thought I just had that diamond-shaped parking brake, but he tells me there should be a second set of shoes inside the drum (almost mimicking disc brakes).  I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Here's a busy shot from the rear of the car with the newer body sitting to the left.

Today was also an interesting story.  Yesterday I had taken the existing body off the car (the new steel lower body that someone had started to make on the rear) and made measurements for the front part of the lower body.  Despite the rear end flaring outward, which would have been extremely difficult to make, the front half is straight and vertical, with the transition taking place where the body is its thinnest---in the three inches under the rear door frame.  This leads me to believe that I can make that front half, since we have some rusted remains of the original at the back of The Garage.

I scribbled down some drawings with measurements galore, and in the end I was convinced I could fabricate a body.  My father, who has dealt with metal for the better part of 40 years, figured that the original bodies used on Maxwells were around 20-gauge steel, but the newer one that sat on the back of our car was 18-gauge.  For strength's sake, I decided to go with 18-gauge for my lower body.

Armed with my drawings, my father and I headed out to the local scrapyard this afternoon for what he intended to be a reconnaissance mission.  The heaps of rusted treasures that greeted us were enough to pique my interest to the point that I could enjoy many an afternoon in this wonderful place.  It also tells me that we're going to need the truck to get this stuff home.

When we found that they had suitable metal, most likely from coil ends, the gentleman offered to cut it to size for us with a plasma torch.  I figured this would be much quicker than the Dremel tool I planned to use, so we agreed, but we needed to go home and get Black Beauty first.

(If you don't remember, my mother has been wanting a vintage truck for years, merely for the purpose of "hauling stuff."  My father found a monstrous 1979 Ford pickup in a nearby town for a few hundred dollars, so we got it.  The truck, which has a massive engine, a lift kit and mudding tires, is affectionately called Black Beauty, due to its eggshell black finish [which included a green tailgate, a Lariat door on a non-Lariat truck and diamond plate running boards].)

After a few cranks, the old truck roared to life, presumably burning a gallon of gas in the process.  Lumbering and rocking its way down the road, we made it back to the scrap yard 15 minutes later.  Despite my father's concerns that she may not start when we went to leave, we headed back into the building to get the metal.

Here's the fellow using the plasma torch to cut the new panels.

The gentleman who would go on to help us stood by a large saw, cutting some angle irons for another man who was making some targets for a shooting range.  We talked about the Maxwell, and he relayed the fantastic story of the "Field of Dreams" in Pierce, Nebraska, where loads of new Chevrolets were left in a field in the 1960s.

While we conversed, the man helping him came back into the room.

"Is that your Ford out there?" he asked us.

"The black one?  Yes, that's ours."

"Nice truck!  Is that a '70 or a '71?  Those custom taillights were only made for those years."

"It's a 1979, but it's a patchwork of several trucks," I laughed.

He went on to tell us how his brother had a truck just like that years ago, and how it was a wonderful machine.  Black Beauty had an admirer.

The gentleman cut our panels to my specifications, and in the end we had spent just $20 for sheet metal that I intend to turn into a Maxwell body.  Despite the fact that I've never done sheet metal work, this one should be interesting.

And here's the finished product.  I can't wait to start fabricating!