Wooden body tools

[tonyfoale]

Jon recently posted pix of the first Corvette body patterns. It does not need a large corporation to make similar tools. Here are a couple of examples that I did in the early 1980s.

The QL.
I have no measurable talent for styling so I put the word out on what I was looking for and Dan Parry Williams arrived at my workshop one Saturday morning with this sketch. I had been somewhat disappointed with the efforts of some others who had offered designs. As soon as I saw this sketch I knew that it was the one. Dan and I formed a great partnership turning his sketch into reality, and we have been friends ever since. The finished result follows the original concept very closely, which is often a rarity. I did all the mechanical design which was quite innovative.

Click images for fullscale view.

Construction stages of the pattern, made in the basement bedroom of my house at the time. That allowed evening work on it after returning home from my workshop where I was working on the mechanical stuff. I was working to a self imposed target date to get it on display at a show in London.



Dan was a mechanical engineering student at the time which had the advantage that we had access to a small windtunnel at his college. Here he is at the controls. I made a 1/6 scale model and used an Action Man toy to do the riding. Aerodynamics with practicality was a big part of my concept. We did comparative tests with a standard bike and if memory serves me correctly we had 67% of the drag of the standard machine.



Continued in next post. Too many photos for a single post.

[tonyfoale]

Continuation:

Body filler was used to fill any voids. Then it was a process of sanding/filling/repeat...... I made one mistake, I painted one area with polyester resin to seal the surface. The black area. Problem was that it took much too long to sand. Once painted it went through another fill/sand/repeat process, after which it was wax polished several times to act as a barrier to the mould resin, as a backup it received a coat of mould release agent. Then I considered the TOOL (pattern) finished. Laying up the mould was a great satisfaction as it signalled the end of a long period of intense work on the pattern. With the mould laid up I went on holiday to recover and to let the mould thoroughly cure before removing it. Small areas of the mould had stuck to the pattern and needed repairing with filler these are the areas shown as light coloured patches.




This only signalled the end of the MAIN tool making phase of the project. There were several other patterns and moulds to be made for the seat base, the luggage compartment cover, headlight housing and covers, mudguards etc, etc. The patterns were single use tools with which to make the mounds. They were tools to make tools and had no purpose after the mounds were made. On the other hand the moulds were tools which could be used several times to make finished bodies. I made about six or seven examples.

[tonyfoale]

The bike shown in the above posts was designed to be a practical everyday bike capable of long distances with covered luggage space but with sports bike handling qualities. To supplement that I built what I term a "FLASH BIKE". A bike for promenading on, not particularly practical but under a flash suit it used the same chassis technology as the QL. It was named as the Q2.

Dan also designed the bodywork for it. The same process of tool making - pattern, mould then finished item had to be repeated.

The concept



The Pattern


Finished main pattern. Painted and ready to take the mould from it.

The moulds

More moulds were needed for the Q2 than required for the QL. Dummy windscreen and headlight cover, the seat foam was moulded to shape and required a closed mould, instrument panel, seat base, belly pan etc, etc





Continued in following post

[tonyfoale]

Q2 continuation

Finished items.

[IntheGroove]

That is awesome. Great work...

[Jon]

Congratulations tonyfoale - your Motorcycle Body Moulds are the Homemade Tool of the Month for December 2025!

Although homemade, these moulds created original motorcycle designs that still look good today.

And that makes two Homemade Tool of the Month wins for tonyfoale, after his Vertical Mill Horizontal Spindle from December 2024.

Some more good builds from December:

Precision Grinding Rest by Philip Davies
Hardness Tester by clavius
Lathe Multi Stop by thehomeengineer
Honing Guides by Philip Davies
Off-Center Chuck by The Hobby Machinist NZ
F-Clamps by Improvised DIY
Vacuum Pot by Wood-N-Metal Workshop
Lightweight Hen-Rob Torch by jerek
Low Profile CNC Clamp by Improvised DIY
Glue Pot Hotplate by Philip Davies
Sheetmetal Counter Sinker by carl blum
Adjustable Workstands by Wood-N-Metal Workshop
Meat Cleaver by Mazay
Welding Clamps by Improvised DIY


tonyfoale - You'll be receiving a $250 cash prize, in your choice of Amazon, PayPal, or bitcoin. Please PM me your current email address and prize choice and I'll get it sent over right away.


Nice work

[tonyfoale]

Congratulations tonyfoale - your Motorcycle Body Moulds are the Homemade Tool of the Month for December 2025!

Although homemade, these moulds created original motorcycle designs that still look good today.

Many thanks. I must say that it was unexpected.
I made 6 or 7 examples of both the QL and the Q2 for customers and around half of them are still being used today, some 40 years on. The original concept for the QL was hatched some 20years before that. It took me a while to get around to making it.

It attracted quite a bit of press interest at the time.

Click image for fullsize.

[albertq]

Looking so futuristic back then it's not surprising it attracted a lot of attention back then.
You are brave and talented to tackle such projects and see them through. Hats off!