1927 T Bucket Roadster Project: Part 3, T Bucket Floor

Today’s installment shows how to install a 1927 T Bucket floor in a fiberglass roadster body. You can use this same information to also install a T Bucket floor in your 1915 or 1923 fiberglass body. Follow along as Bob Hamilton shows how it’s done.

T Bucket Floor Installation

1927 fiberglass t-bucket floor installation

“The 1927 T Bucket floor was the next item to install. I slightly channeled the body ¾ of an inch which set it outside of the frame a small amount. This allowed me to shim and square the body to the frame and also have the body overlap a small amount. The frame will be custom built on my plywood table and that will be shown later how to set up and build. In the picture, the body is off the garage floor with 2 x 4 ‘s and then I took 1 x 2’s to set the 5/8 ths inch plywood I’m using for the T Bucket floor on. I should stop here and tell you that I set the body on the 5/8 th’s plywood and marked the outline of the inside of the body and cut it out so that it would be ready to mount and glass to the body. This was done prior to setting the body on the floor. Now that the body was set and the 1 x 2 ‘s were in place, I set the cutout T Bucket floor inside the body and centered the floor to where the gaps were about equal all around. I glassed the floor with two layers of the 1 oz. mat in three or four places on each side to set the floor. I let the glass kick before adding any more around the inside. Be careful not to bump the body when doing the initial glass work as this will or can shift the body and the floor.

Let me tell you an easy way to work with glass mat: take a piece of plywood or ¼ inch masonite and wrap it with wax paper and tape it with 2 inch masking tape. Buy and use some cheap latex disposable gloves on your hands. Cut the mat into whatever size pieces you are working with. I never go more than about 6 x 8 inches. Any bigger and you will have trouble taking it from the board to the work. Mix up the resin and catalyst, use a 2 inch cheap brush and apply the resin to the mat and tap the brush up and down with the end to force the resin into the mat. When the mat looks somewhat translucent and there are no dry spots, pick up the mat with your hands and place in onto the work. Then take the brush and work all the air bubbles out and smooth the resin out. Don’t leave a thick coating of resin on the mat. It will only crack and then it serves no purpose. Be sure you overlap layers if you are doing a long or large area.”

1927 fiberglass t-bucket floor installation

“The T Bucket floor is in and also the rear divider. Notice how the glass is laid in against the body and the wood. After the body is glassed and rigid on the top – then I will turn it over and do the same on the bottom. This will sandwich the floor, firewall and rear divider together with the body and will become very strong and durable.”

That’s all for today’s installment on installing a T Bucket floor. If you’d like to learn more about this and actually watch as Bob similarly installs a floor in a Model A roadster pickup body, along with just about everything else you need to know about working with fiberglass, we highly recommend the StreetRod 101 Fiberglass Body Modifications DVD that we have available at our sister site, StreetRodPlans.com.

StreetRod 101 DVDs
Collect the complete StreetRod 101 DVD Library: available at our sister site, www.StreetRodPlans.com

Thanks to your positive response, we’ll continue this cool 1927 T roadster series in the coming days so check back often.

To be sure you don’t miss the next installment in this series, Subscribe to TBucketPlans.com RSS Feed

John Morehead
Follow me
Latest posts by John Morehead (see all)

Related Posts

  • 10000
    1927 T Bucket Roadster Project: Part 2In this installment in our series Bob Hamilton shows how to repair fiberglass on the 1927 T Bucket body to replace a panel that had been previously cut away. You'll recall from Part 1 that Bob started with a fiberglass 1927 T Bucket body that had been carved up for…
    Tags: body, mat, bucket, set
  • 10000
    1927 T Bucket Roadster Project: Part 1If you've read our story about Bob Hamilton's Oakland Roadster Show winning Track T you've seen that Bob can build a great looking 1927 T Bucket roadster. This time, though, you can follow along as Bob uses the same skills on a relatively low budget 1927 T Bucket roadster for…
    Tags: bucket
  • 10000
    1927 Track T Roadster: Bob Hamilton's Oakland Roadster Show WinnerThis 1927 Track T Roadster was built by Bob Hamilton in his home garage but went on to win 1st place in its class in 1989 at the famed Grand National Roadster Show in Oakland, California. I'm fortunate being able to work with Bob Hamilton in the marketing of his…

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.