1928 Cadillac 341-A , Body Style 7930, & 7940L

Hi,

Read your post from 2003, not sure if you will get this or not but who knows.

I have just taken delivery of a 1928 five seat sedan and a 28 seven seat sedan and would be very interested in talking to you as I am about where you were in 2003.

I live at Rainbow in Victoria Phone no is 03 53951094.

Hope to hear from you some time .

Cheers, Ron.

My Lebaron Stutz custom LWB 5 passenger sedan was probably in about the same state as you have to contend with. Guy Menzies did a masterly job re-framing the body, which is a job for a sedan that I personally would not give my time to because there is so much to do is other ways that is more to my satisfaction. I am in Victoria, which is enough for you to get my phone listing. You are certainly welcome to look at the detail that is correct and necessary on that body frame. Also David Dryden is only 20 minutes away, and he is the person most skilled at body woodwork framing that I know since Guy left us. David was a cabinetmaker on the new Parliamnt House project, including PM's and Opposition Leaders suites. (there are very interesting things to learn about that).

At places like Carbitool, high quality Honourable Oriental woodworking machinery for every necessary purpose is no longer unaffordable. (You can getvery good machinery from there, though clothing and smaller tools and similar manufactured stuff is frequently rubbish, and imported food from there absolutely without safeguards of quality and safety).

Another vital piece of equipment for wood body framing is a 5 inch angle grinder with fairly coarse grit flap wheels for contour shaping. (Collect the dust of course, and wear a good filter.) When I repaired the body frame of my 1927 Cadillac 314B 4 passenger phaeton in the early 1960's my only woodworking tools were a handsaw 8 teeth/inch, a 1 1/2inch wood chisel, hand plane, a brace and half inch bit, and a rasp. I had to work under the wattle tree in the backyard.

Kieth Brown in Ft Wayne Indiana was the first person I ever met who was doing a masterly job re-framing a sedan body. Paul Freehill took me to meet him: he was restoring his own J Duesenberg, which if I remember correctly was something that others cared not to tackle. Photo of the restored car is the featured frontispice of Fred Roe's book "Duesenberg: The Pursuit of Perfection". The way he had the panels set out in position with string lines, and rigidly supported where they needed to be, was something I wish now I had been able to sketch, note, and photograph for eternal reference.

You are not far away: You need to talk if you think I can help you.