Clever but BAD

Posted: April 15th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Blog | Tags: | Comments Off on Clever but BAD


Just visited a client’s house in the West Village and this doorknob installation made me laugh it was so BAD! They bought this place newly renovated in, oh I don’t know, probably around ’98 I would guess. It’s one of those gorgeous Landmarked buildings down there but the interior renovation was clearly a “SELL RENO” that has all the high-end hardware that looks good at first but then things start to fall apart little by little….

I’ve never seen a trick this bad though – the door is a standard 1-3/4″ metal door (which is bad enough in a high end house…) but the knob & latch is  a fancy Baldwin that requires a smaller hole than the standard 2-1/8″. So what did they do since metal doors always come with the bigger hole? They filled it with some sort of wood putty or Bondo, and redrilled a smaller hole into that material for mounting the knobs. I’ll bet they were so proud of their ingenuity… but now all that fill has shattered & fallen out so the knob is just hanging there, looking all ugly.

Amazing….


Wilsonbuilt’s 1964 GMC

Posted: April 6th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Blog | Tags: | Comments Off on Wilsonbuilt’s 1964 GMC

After anguishing for so long over the fate of Big Orange which has been in “storage” for 3 years or so, I finally had it towed in January to a my friend Sergei Hasegawa’s lot in Williamsburg.  Was just there the other day to take some pix – its amazing how quickly rust will grow but it isn’t as bad as I thought it would be and with  some luck I hope to be able to get it rolling again sometime later this year. A big plus will be Sergei’s help – he rebuilt 5 or so vehicles back when he lived in San Francisco and it will be invaluable to get his input since I haven’t done much work on vehicles.

This weekend I’m planning on starting –  The first step will be to take off the Utility body in the back. Yes I love the back too (i can hear your gasps of surprise) but the locks don’t work very well anymore and the darn thing is HEAVY! Once that goes to the scrapyard then I can look at the body a bit closer. For sure the 2 front fenders will have to be replaced, the door bottoms repaired, and the driver’s side floor needs patching. I’ll either put a wood flatbed in the rear or I’ll install a vintage pickup body if I can find one in good shape.

Oh and the engine, too. Going to look for someone selling a rebuilt motor that would work. If you know anyone selling a 350 V8 engine from the early 1970s that is in pretty good shape let me know!

More later….