Junior, the steward of Surplus Supply Co. turned out to be one cool cat.
http://www.surplussupplyco.com/
So....I came to the realization that if there were any sort of replacement panels out there for Betty, I needed to get my hands on them just to save me some time in fabricating. I was hoping to score some direct replacement rocker panels, or even similiar-to direct replacement rocker panels. Hell, in 1950, how many differences could there be between the cars, especially rockers?
So I scoured the interwebs and found Surplus Supply Company. Their website showed lots of stuff for 40's-50's Ford and Chevy, so I figured I just might score a few Buick parts, or even find some Ford or Chevy stuff that would...or could...be fabricated a hell of a lot easier than flat sheet metal.
I noticed they were located in Akron, OH, which was only about 5-6 hours from Holland. It just so happens Sara's brother lives another 2 hours from Akron, in Athens, OH...so a weekend trip seemed like a pretty good deal. This way, I had the ability to look at any panels and decide whether or not they'd work for the Buick. That way, I'd also save face on the dreadful shipping. -TH
At first I was a little worried about the guys here...but turns out they were super cool. To say the place is a pile full of new and NOS parts is an extreme understatement. If you look closely in the top picture, that huge man-sized stack of what appears to be near-flat strips of metal are all new-old-stock rocker panels! They dug and dug to find the two panels for the Buick. Turns out, the company, Schofield, went out of business in the 1960's! -TH
Here I am, checking out a 1970's Chevy Blazer quarter panel patch piece, deciding whether it would work for the Buick rear fender. I opted not to buy it and decided to fabricate up my own panel out of some other goodies I bought. -TH
Yeah, tons and tons of parts. Everywhere. I have no idea how they find anything. -TH
And this was just the beginning! There were rooms and shelves all over this warehouse-of-sorts with piles and piles of metal. And these two guys knew right where to look for anything Tim asked about. It was quite surreal, watching them pull piece after piece down just to get the one thing they were looking for. It was set up totally old-school in the sense that there was no real "system" to all of the madness, just the car makes and years labeled in permanent marker with arrows pointing all over the place. Each piece had a part number on it, and quite honestly, I think those two guys are the only two people in the world that know what each number means. -SB
In total, we scored some pretty good stuff. I was hoping that the pre-formed Ford trunk floor they sold could be used in the Buick, but it was too small. And the Nova and a Chevelle trunk floors, while feasable, were just too expensive. I opted for 3 pieces of truck bed repair panel that I can form into the desired piece to go in the trunk. JC Whitney had it for the same price, plus the shipping though. The rockers are Schofield NOS rockers. The two floor pans are for the rear of the floor, which was patched very poorly. They're from a 50 Chevy, but should work fine. I was about ready to leave when I asked him if he had any scrap or flatstock, and he showed me a Chevelle rear quarter panel that was damaged, and cut in half...PERFECT! Just the amount of material I needed to finish up fabricating the outside of the trunk, and the fender edges - plus I have nice, long pieces now to use, which was going to cost bigtime if I went and bought flatstock. (Underneith that long panel are 2 other pieces) Everything ran me $300.00 which brings our total so far to about $500.00 (minus the initial cost of the car).
Considering that there are NO vendors, or places that make any panels for these Buicks, I think I did pretty good. Looking through the old, dilapidated Schofield catalog, the only panel even available in 1965 for the car was the rockers. While they make (or made) tons of parts for 51-59 Buicks, the 50 is in a league of its own, with nothing available. O well...we got what we needed and headed on to Athens for the weekend. -TH
What was cool was the Schofield company address didn't even have a Zip code then! Talk about old! Plus, the little Schofield dude (adequately named "Sco-Joe") looks Jazzy and right out of a Jetsons episode! -TH
