A guy I know really well, both he and his brother worked on Wall Street for many years. Made some really strong money. Bought lovely houses on the same street in an older development in the horse country along the New Jersey shore; terrific places to raise families. Both of them endured a two-hour commute each way for something like 20 years on NJ Transit rail along the shore, plus a second ride each day on the PATH tubes under the Hudson River. Got downsized more than once. Went to a lot of funerals in the weeks that followed the horror of 9/11, and both decided to chuck the baron-of-capitalism lifestyle entirely and change careers. One now teaches American history in an urban high school classroom and sells O gauge trains on the side, having found a cheaper hobby than Stock Eliminator drag racing. The other one, years after he bought his first upright Craftsman jigsaw (and sold his Harley Sportster) now handcrafts exquisitely fine cabinetry and other furniture from inside his two-car garage. Does it well enough to scratch out a living in one of the country's more expensive places to live.
It's neat to watch him work, because the touch of his strong, hard hands is nothing less than magical. Unlike what you might expect, he works pretty quickly. His ability to position, saw, bevel, plane and sand wood is truly a gift from another world. Maybe his hands are so good because, where he worked before, his productivity was measured in large part by the number of keystrokes he made. If any Wall Streeters out there are reading this, you likely know exactly what I'm talking about. Would have driven me into a foaming, teeth-gritting rage. Instead, it did a lot to help turn this guy into a gifted craftsman. Call him Mike. He's not into collectible cars -- at least, not yet, although like his brother, he was more than casually into drag racing at Englishtown, New Jersey -- but he probably ought to be. This is a hobby that can richly reward the highly skilled mechanic, body shaper or paint specialist. Having the commitment, daring or just plain craziness to take on the rejuvenation of a wood-bodied automobile brings an added dimension that automatically makes you an artisan, not just a hobbyist, even if you're taking on the job at home, with nothing in your expectations but a learning experience.
Working with wood in your shop is a lot like working with cheese in the kitchen. Both are living, breathing substances with distinct personalities. For the purposes of this tale, let's take the second item first. Cheese is a food made from the milk of the cow, goat or sheep. It gains its solidified form through curdling, a process that uses either acids or bacteria as a catalyst. That explains the presence of living mold in bleu cheeses, which gives them their color and flavor. Wood comes from a living creature, too, given its basic form as the cellulose fibers of a tree or certain types of shrubbery. Like cheese, the texture and workability of wood can vary greatly.
It is totally unlike any other material used in the restoration of a car. Steel and glass basically just sit there. The worst you can say about either one of them is that they become rusty or crazed, respectively. Wood changes continuously with its environment, just like cheese. Your favorite cheddar or Stilton sits in a dark cellar for years, in some cases, while it gains its sharpness and aroma. Wood, depending on the complexity of its cellular structure, has a wide range of resistance to bending and vulnerability to the elements. According to Cincinnati restorer Chip Kussmal, wood is largely impervious to temperature changes, which is probably contrary to most people's notions. It is, however, extremely susceptible to physical reconstitution as the ambient humidity climbs or falls. Wood, as a consequence, will expand .125 inch per foot of width as the seasons change. That's why your front door frequently sticks in the summertime.
Those exquisite bows that form the structure of a woody wagon's roof? They're a challenge in their own right. There's a quickie way to make them, which is known as kerfing. Essentially, you bend the wood by notching it at the places where's it's supposed to be curved into position. It's a legitimate technique, but the downside is that it weakens the wood wherever the cuts are made. Not the best thing when the bows are supposed to form a major part of the vehicle's architecture. A far better technique is steam bending, which, curious though it may sound, has to start with perfectly dry wood. This doesn't directly involve woody restoration, but it's worthwhile to look at the sort of methodology used by Bill Calimer of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, whose specialty is building wheels for brass-era cars. His wood, usually hickory, is kiln-dried to remove any trace of moisture, then saturated with steam, bent and clamped into shape, and then carefully dried again.
If you're the kind of person who starts trembling at the very thought of visiting Home Depot, or gets the same reaction from the sound of a circular saw as from the shrill shriek of a dentist's drill, you probably hold the professional woodworker in some kind of preternatural awe. I know that I do. Where I came from, my exposure to wood was pretty much limited to kicking around pieces of busted-up vegetable crates behind the Key Food in East New York. Imagine, now, the volume of work that would ordinarily come into play if you were restoring a 1947 Ford, then mix in the added degree of difficulty that selecting wood, precisely sawing it, shaping it and fastening it would entail if it was a Sportsman convertible. Factor in the necessary tribal knowledge of fasteners, adhesives, veneers, varnishes, sanding (again and again), and you'll never have to ask again why wood-bodied cars are held in such esteem. Mike knows what I'm talking about, I'm certain.
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This article originally appeared in the April, 2007 issue of Hemmings Classic Car.
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