MTFCA Forum

I just purchases Kim's Automatic windshield and I may replace the brass setting channel. The stuff available from Speedway Motors is made for their reproduction frames. The Automatic frame has tighter corners so I will be bending the new pieces of setting channel to fit. The brass setting is thin and very difficult to to heat without making spaghetti. I am thinking about annealing it with low heat forming it over a piece of Masonite cut to the same dimension I need.
How does that sound?
Criticism pro and con welcomed.

The masonite former inside the channel is a start. However you will need a second component to prevent the channel spreading outwards. A piece of timber cut to the outside of the desired curve and just a tad thicker than the channel, can be backed either side with extra piece of timber to form a channel to hold the brass from spreading. Masonite may not be the best choice for the driver, as you may have to be a little to aggressive for it to stand up.

Allan from down under.

Thanks for the input, Allan. Thinking on it, I could make a dye by cutting two curves side by side out of wood and use spacers to get the right distance apart to keep the setting channel from spreading and a hard piece of properly shaped wood for the driver. I am hoping that using Speedway Motors setting channel with curves already present would be easier than starting with straight channel, do you agree?
Also thinking about using a little heat to anneal the channel. I would place the setting channel in a different driver that conforms to the the Speedway curve to keep it from noodling as I heat it.
Maybe annealing isnt a good idea, I don't know
Thinking as I type, do I need a bottom on the curved die to keep the brass from sinking down too low or will the ridges on the brass channel stay above the sides of the dye ?
I suppose I could cut a full length spacer board with a 1/4 inch greater radius to sandwich between the two others to give the dye a bottom.

How you make the former is up to you. It just needs some way to stop the brass going walkabout during the bend. I learned the former trick when bending C section aluminium for my D and F roadster. Bending it and keeping it flat required a former. For that job I simply cut a bend to the profile required and the used my table saw to machine a groove in the end, into which the C section fitted. Drawing it around that former was easy. Your material and the bending application is much different.
I would think annealing would be required. The thin material in glass setting channel would need very careful treatment, which others may be able to help with.
Good luck.
Allan from down under.

Richard,
Here’s a good thread on it.

https://www.mtfca.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=9367