Ron lives exactly 23 steps from the water. A pelican is hanging out on the boat jetty. The heat is intensive and we crouch behing primitive sun screens. His boats smell like an island in the south pacific. It’s cooler in the shop. The shop has a 16 feet high roof where the scent of wood fills every cubic inch. I recieve all the 120 points of bachelor degrre at once – In English.
The method is called strip planking. The material is honduras mahogny. One lap a day of sawing, pressing and fitting. The steel frame to the rod is taking shape and the strip planking is
being made after this gig. Hood and sides were simontaneously glued and then sawed apart. Don spent five years on this project.
Don didn’t hold anything back. He hit the brakes quite late and turned the wheels to let them struggle on the hard asphalt. The wooden body
looked like it had been glass framed.
The gluing process is a crock pot of 20 years of expereience of making propellers, ice yachts and boats. Crosspiled veneer and Ron’s own Epoxy recipe with different hardeners for different purposes has made it possible.
– It’s stronger than fiberglass, both in sustainability and durability, he says.
Ron started in 1997 with making the steel frame. Yeah, of course he welds as well, even though he first started with making a wooden model! A Chevrolet Caprice had the honor of donating a 305 HO smallblock, th700 and a LSD rear axle with 3,08:1.
After a coat of spray-can paint the chassie was standing on all four.
Yeah, then it all started. Two ribs in press in the morning and then two after strains during the day resulted in the rear corners. Every rib had its own radies to make the body expand further up. Dry time for the Epoxy is three hours but