[GB SISSON]

Work has indeed stayed busy, then we have had 6 members of my wife's family visiting since Friday. They caught the morning ferry off the island today so I busted out some scrap lumber, plywood strips and some sheetrock screws and started mocking up the woodie in three dimensions. None of what you see here will be a final part of the wagon, it's only a rough layout. Since I have seen photos of commercial woodies with just two doors like a panel truck, I was tempted, but decided to lay it out as a 4 door wagon. The rear passenger doors will have 4 square corners without a curved cut-out at the rear fender, making them easier to build and far stronger. In the photos you will see I used an extra panel truck passenger side door I had for the mock-up to lead into the shape of the body lines. The panel doors have a square top corner that mimics what I will be building from wood. So far just some sticks and screws, but it is still fun to look at and visualize the outcome. I have about a thousand board feet of clear 1" western white pine, sometimes called sugar pine or pattern pine. I plan to make the two main longitudinal roof rails from 3 laminations of this. It is a very close color match to the maple but easier to machine. It will be covered in black material on the exterior and only exposed on the interior. The structural body will be maple with maple veneer panels. We have a vaccuum press that will press up to a 4x8 sheet, so I can make the panels with exterior glue. My plan is to build the body with the doors and rear gates and retain the ability to lift it off when it's near completion. At that point I will install the engine/tranny and do brakes, kingpins etc without having to crawl around on the floor. I know it's kind of backwards, but I have to keep my interest up and I'm kind of like an excited kid wanting to see the woody come together. The mechanical part is not that exciting as I have done all the procedures many times on past Ford trucks.