[alfa] idle thoughts on how they did it

[MCosgrove@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

I needed to fabricate a new engine cover hinge for my Abarth Record Monza.
I had one but the other got lost some time in the last 35 years. It was
fabricated from flat bar, round bar, and some tubing (and some pretty
sloppy welds).  My concern was bending the round bar to the correct shape.
I had some raw material of the correct diameter, so I clamped it in a vise,
put a bit of cheater pipe on it, and bent.  To my surprise, I got the
correct bend on my first try.  For the tubing, 1/8" pipe was the correct
OD, so I took a bit of that and drilled out the ID.  Got it welded up and
it looks identical to the real thing.

My point being, when given a hinge to fabricate in 1960, did the workers at
Zagato try to be fancy, get the proper blueprint for the part, pull the raw
material, and work at it till it would pass inspection, or did they pick up
a bit of round bar, chuck it in a vise and bend it with a cheater pipe?
Did they then decide that piece of pipe on the work bench, drilled out,
would work fine as a hinge, so that's what they used?  The Borgeson book on
Bugatti stated that the simple but elegant shapes seen on Bugatti engines
was more because the shapes were easy for his Alsatian workers to machine,
rather than a conscious effort to be elegant.  In the case of the Zagato
hinge, did they just do it as easily as it could be done and still do the
job.

Mike in Texas
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