Post by stitchdup on Aug 13, 2017 17:25:40 GMT -7
This is just a very rough guide to chopping roofs from 1935 to the mid fifties. It will work on later tops to, if they aren't bubble top style (eg. tri five style tops and impala style tops).
This is by no means a definitive guide but will hopefully cover the basics to get you started. I am using the first top chop I did since I started building again as the example so you will see a few gaps and holes caused by my own mistake of not doing enough checking and test fits before cutting. The car I am using is a 40 ford coupe. This is the body before starting, a nice shape but would be improved by a lower top. Note how on the 40, the top flows into the trunk area smoothly. This will determin where the rearmost cut will be so we can retain its flow.
I seem to have lost one of my pics but if you look closely at the following pic, you can see how the roof was cut off in 2 parts, and the side windows have been left on up to the drip rails/gutters. You can also see how the rear of the roof was removed down to the lowermost edge of the curve, and the front of the roof was removed from the start of the straight edge on the side windows. This is when I would mark out the size of the chop on the front, side and rear pillars and cut them down. on the rear side windows you will want to remove the chop from as near to the rear curved edge as possible as we want to keep as much of the side window area, as we can.
Here we can see the top is partly back on, and supported on popsicle/lolly sticks. We can see how the flow has been maintained on the roof, and still look correct. It was at this point I got a little lazy and went hardtop on it, but if I was going to keep the side windows, the rear side window frames we removed have perfect curves to match the roof, and just need some careful trimming to fit. If you take your time on them and test fit repeatedly you should not need much filler.
The next pic is from a bit further on in the process, but it shows how the flow was maintained better than the other I have. To keep the flow of the roof I only removed material from the rear window part, A little from below the rear window and more from the front edge until it looked right and the flow was smooth. You can also see it is held together with tape and how I wasn't very neat with my cutting so there are a few gaps needing filled. This can be avoided if you check and double check everything before cutting. I didn't and got all those gaps. I filled them with strips of the removed plastic glued in with humbrol poly cement, and many hours of fill, sand, repeat on primer and filler.
and here is the rear view afterwards.
On some tops you will have a sharper edge where the roof meets the trunk, so when cutting out the rear window area, we would cut along the sharp edge instead of the trunk top.
I hope this is helpful and covers the basics. I'll do some photoshop tomorrow of where my cut lines and trimming was on the stock body, sorta like one of those butcher signs showing where the cuts of meat come from
This is by no means a definitive guide but will hopefully cover the basics to get you started. I am using the first top chop I did since I started building again as the example so you will see a few gaps and holes caused by my own mistake of not doing enough checking and test fits before cutting. The car I am using is a 40 ford coupe. This is the body before starting, a nice shape but would be improved by a lower top. Note how on the 40, the top flows into the trunk area smoothly. This will determin where the rearmost cut will be so we can retain its flow.
I seem to have lost one of my pics but if you look closely at the following pic, you can see how the roof was cut off in 2 parts, and the side windows have been left on up to the drip rails/gutters. You can also see how the rear of the roof was removed down to the lowermost edge of the curve, and the front of the roof was removed from the start of the straight edge on the side windows. This is when I would mark out the size of the chop on the front, side and rear pillars and cut them down. on the rear side windows you will want to remove the chop from as near to the rear curved edge as possible as we want to keep as much of the side window area, as we can.
Here we can see the top is partly back on, and supported on popsicle/lolly sticks. We can see how the flow has been maintained on the roof, and still look correct. It was at this point I got a little lazy and went hardtop on it, but if I was going to keep the side windows, the rear side window frames we removed have perfect curves to match the roof, and just need some careful trimming to fit. If you take your time on them and test fit repeatedly you should not need much filler.
The next pic is from a bit further on in the process, but it shows how the flow was maintained better than the other I have. To keep the flow of the roof I only removed material from the rear window part, A little from below the rear window and more from the front edge until it looked right and the flow was smooth. You can also see it is held together with tape and how I wasn't very neat with my cutting so there are a few gaps needing filled. This can be avoided if you check and double check everything before cutting. I didn't and got all those gaps. I filled them with strips of the removed plastic glued in with humbrol poly cement, and many hours of fill, sand, repeat on primer and filler.
and here is the rear view afterwards.
On some tops you will have a sharper edge where the roof meets the trunk, so when cutting out the rear window area, we would cut along the sharp edge instead of the trunk top.
I hope this is helpful and covers the basics. I'll do some photoshop tomorrow of where my cut lines and trimming was on the stock body, sorta like one of those butcher signs showing where the cuts of meat come from
