Working clamshell hoods on street rods

[Lyle Willits]

Scribe equally spaced “scratches†into a small diameter aluminum tubing to represent piano hinge segments.

Cut the tubing to exact length of the hood.

Cut the tube in half and glue a stiff piece of wire inside on ONE half of the tube.

Glue the tubes to each half of the hood using CA glue or epoxy.

Slide the two halves together. The hood top will now flip up on either side.

Align a hood SIDE with the hood top and “hinge†it using a strip of masking tape. The small portion of the tape that may show can be painted with steel colored paint to represent a metal hinge. Obviously, if you want, you can make actual working metal hinges for the hood sides.

Ta-da

This may not be high tech enough for a contest, like Greater Salt Lake, but it makes for a nice display at NNL type shows.

[Bernard Kron]

Nice and simple. In fact I wasn't expecting something quite so elegantly to the point. Sure beats actually reproducing a piano hinge with all the little cut outs. Thanx for this excellent tip!

[Lyle Willits]

I have used the actual piano hinge from The Model Car Garage. It's an excellent product but it is very time consuming and is very tedious to work with,,,,,,especially if you have 60 year-old eyes.

[george 53]

THAT was a GREAT tip Lyle,THANKS! I can see ALOT of uses for it.The Truckers should love it!!!!