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The automobile in question is a 1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K
Special Roadster. Under supervision of a German master machinist, I helped
fabricate many parts of (several) of these autos. Virtually the entire automobile
you see was rebuild from the ground up. One on my specialties was hand
filing complex moldings (another was engine
turning).
In the image on the left, I am beginning to fabricate the long slim fender molding that you can see in the picture above. I am creating an aluminum template of the lower edge of the fender "lip". |
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Having transfered the markings to a sheet of 0.200 brass, I am hand filing a rough outline of the molding. These moldings are so long and thin that they cannot support their own weight! So I had to build special jigs just to hold them. |
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After obtaining the right overall shape, I had to hand file the "profile". In addition the inside edge had to be hand filed to be slightly concave in order fit exactly on the fender. Here I am doing some final fitting. To get both side moldings to this stage took several months. |
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This is a photo from the final fitting, before the molding was chrome plated and the fender painted (with 50 coats of lacquer!). The fit was so tight that nowhere along the 8 foot length of the molding was it possible to fit a human hair between the molding and the fender. |
