Frame Stamping
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Team Owner
Joined: Jun 2000
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From: Southbound
Cruise-In II Veteran
Frame Stamping
I read an interesting article in Corvette Quarterly about the use of a pneumatic hammer to stamp the VIN into Sting Ray and Shark frames. A couple of years ago, I attended Dave Burrough's seminar at Bloomington concerning production at the St. Louis plant. Dave said by the time he was visiting the plant and documenting production (78-82) engines, transmissions, and frames were being stamped by hand by an employee on the line using a hand-held tool and a two pound hammer. Does anyone know when use of the pneumatic tool was discontinued and they reverted to hand stamping?
Team Owner
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From: Washington Michigan
See my article on page 52-56 of the current (August) issue of "Corvette Enthusiast" magazine on frame stamping at St. Louis - tells and shows everything you'd ever want to know about Corvette frame stamping. Hand-stamping, which was a repair operation, was only used when the pneumatic stamping tool broke down. 
Thread Starter
Team Owner
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 38,923
Likes: 1,482
From: Southbound
Cruise-In II Veteran
My mistake on the magazine title (too many Corvette subscriptions over the years). I read and enjoyed your article. Thanks for the information. Personally, I would much rather read an article of this nature and learn something about Corvette production/history than I would three or four pages covering someone's tubbed out and blown '63.
Team Owner
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 38,897
Likes: 1,926
From: Washington Michigan
That's part of what I do as Vintage Technical Editor - I write a full technical article each month either on restoration/maintenance or on the original production processes, and I write a "Tech Bench" column which answers one reader's problem question each month. I leave the C4-5-6 and modified articles to others.
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