Dolly

Dolly the Sheep 7/5/96 - 2/14/03

On July 5, 1996, a group of scientists in Edinburgh, Scottland cloned the worlds first mammal--a sheep to be exact--and named her Dolly.  On August 11, 2012, I cloned a Dolly of my own....and let me assure you, she's a sexy looking beast.

Although my Dolly has no coat and will never produce a beautiful wool blanket, it is a replica of a Dolly made by one of my new acquaintances, Tony.  Tony has been following my blog since its inception (he's probably one of only 2 or 3 people that actually follow this train wreck) and we began exchanging emails about a month ago.  It turns out we have a lot in common.  First and foremost, he too is restoring a 1954 GMC pickup.  Ironically, he also grew up about 45 minutes away from where I presently live...so needless to say, we hit it off pretty quickly.  Several posts ago, I made reference to the fact that I wasn't planning to remove my truck's cab from its frame because I lacked a hoist and method to move the cab around once I had it off the frame.  Tony reached out to me and emailed some photos of his solution to my conundrum.  Below is a photo he sent me of the dolly he constructed to hold and move his cab once he got it off the frame

Tony's cab on dolly

Because of Tony's encouragement, I finally got the balls to "go the distance" and do a 100% "frame-off" restoration--cab and all.  Thanks, Tony.  The next step was to just copy clone Tony's design.

This evening I took a trip down to the hardware store and bought the necessary supplies:  some 2 x 6's, a couple 4 x 4's, four casters, and a handful of lag bolts (don't worry, I added this expense to my running tally--which coincidentally, will be published under the "Dollars & Sense" section of my blog some time in the next month or so).  After measuring the footprint of the cab's underside, I made quick work of replicating Tony's dolly.  One nice aspect of this project was that it brought me back to familiar territory...carpentry.  Wood is sooooo much more forgiving than metal--easier to cut, easier to join, and in most cases much, much lighter.  In about an hour, I had the frame finished and was ready to secure the casters.  I bought some SURLY casters to ensure stability and a smooth ride.

Now that's a caster!

   Once the casters were secured, it was time to get my clone on its feet:

Okay, so its not an exact clone...but its pretty damn close.  It has been said that imitation is the sincerist form of flattery.  Well, Tony...consider yourself flattered.  :-)  I opted to make mine slightly taller than Tony's because I'm taller and I figured it would be easier to work on the cab if I wasn't having to crouch down all the time.  I also ended up with some spare lumber so I added a few cross members for some extra stability.

Clearly, I'm no structural engineer.  "Hack" might be a more accurate label.  Oh well, I doubt these "cross members" really even add much stability.  Then again, everyone likes a little extra mojo now and then...am I right?  You know, you put some mojo here and then some mojo there and the next thing you know you have cross-mojonation.  Are ya pickin' up what I'm layin' down, people?  If you aren't, watch this video:  cross-mojonation. 

Cross-mojonation

But unlike Asutin Powers, I haven't lost my mojo:

It's right there.  Now I just have to pull the cab off the frame and plop it down on this bad mama jama.  Until next time...thanks for reading.