Making Fender Skirts for a
1935 Plymouth Convertible
By Mike Bade
The time being home quarantined has particularly productive for me, I have had a list for over a year of things I have wanted to do to my 30 and 35 Plymouths.
The latest thing I have been able to do is finish making Fender Skirts for my 35 Plymouth Convertible.
The idea started a couple years ago, when I recalled a past CPPC member also had a 35 Ply Convertible, which had fender skirts and how cool it made his car look.
After finding a set of fender skirts and buying them; then finding out they were for a 37 Plymouth and then getting out bid on ebay for another set of fender skirts, I decided to just make my own.
I made the pattern out of thin wood material and a plan in my head, how to attach it.
I started searching ebay, for the proper fender skirt medallion for a 35 Plymouth. I found them from a POC member in Michigan; who reproduces them in resin, wow is that crazy luck.
I transferred the mounting hole locations for the medallion to my wood pattern. I took it to a metal fabrication shop and they scanned the pattern and lazer cut me the fender skirts out of steel.
I bought sheet metal clamps to be able to secure it to the fender. Another fabrication shop welded on the clamps for me.
This spring, I took the fender skirt medallions, to Finish Line Industries Inc., in Newberg where they used a process called, Cosmichrome, to chome the medallions. The process is basically, painting with chrome paint, for things that can't be chromed, through the regular chroming process.
I setup a table in the basement, prepped the metal and painted the fender shirts. During the process I mixed up the kinds of paint; mixing lacquer and enamel paints by accident. Then I had issues with the primer in was using. Finally the paint worked out.
Last thing was to attach a small bracket to the inside of the fender, to be able to remove the fender skirt to change the tire etc. I will keep an eye on these brackets for a while to make sure they hold everything.
Nothing seems to be cheap when it comes to restoring cars these days, sometime you need to take the initiative to get things done, something I have used to get things done all my life.
Besides having the satisfaction of doing this myself, it has been a learning process that I can apply, when I need to do the next thing for my cars or other CPPC members.