This is the second part of two stories highlighting what it takes to lower the lid on a '33/34 Chevy coupe. Marcel De Ley and his two sons, Marc and Luc, did the work at Marcel's Custom Metal Shaping. In the last issue of STREET RODDER, we showed what the coupe looked like as it arrived at their shop, the initial work on cutting the roof apart, and then lining up the pieces.
In this installment, we'll show how Marcel's put those pieces back together, reworked the rear window area, and filled the top. A future issue will showcase how the guys went about cutting down the doors to fit their new openings (while adding suicide hinges in the process).
As shown in the last installment, there is a lot of wood used for structural integrity inside Chevy coupe bodies. All of the wood from the beltline up has to be removed before the creation of new metal pieces can begin. At this point of the chop job, the wood slats used to support the vinyl insert in the rooftop are the only pieces of wood left in the interior-everything else has been removed.
There are probably as many different ways to chop a coupe as there are coupes, but here's the way Marcel's did it: The roof was cut into two pieces-a front half and rear half, split at the middle of the door opening. But when Marc made his cuts to the rear section of the roof (just above the beltline), he went up and around the rear window, leaving it to be modified after the initial chop had been tacked together. Though he did a 2-inch chop on the posts, he decided only a 1-inch chop through the rear window was enough. Proportionally, it was the right thing to do, as a 2-inch chop in the rear window would make the window opening too small for the size of the roof. So the overall chop became a two-step program: Cut the roof into two halves, and then chop the rear window.
One of the most important pieces of information needed when doing a chop, or any other work that requires welding, is to pay close attention as to how the pieces fit back together, literally. If there is too much of a gap between two pieces, then you'll either have to fill it with weld (not a good thing to do) or make the gap a little larger and then fill it with a new section of metal (making more work for yourself in the process). If the pieces overlap each other, even slightly, the weld itself will not be good and you'll have to hammer on the area, thus stretching the metal and creating waves or dents (and again creating more work for yourself).
So, rule number one, along with all those other rule number ones, is to take the time to accurately mark and cut what you're working on so the pieces butt up to each other, with a gap of only 1/16-inch or less. That's what good welders do, and that's what you should do too!
With the cuts extending down to the beltline, the top section of the rear window can be removed. | 
This is what it looks like from inside the cab with the roof section tacked together and the top section of the rear window removed. | 
Using a mini air saw, Marc cuts off about an inch of the rear window section still left on the car. |
The top window piece is refitted, and you can see there is an overlap of roughly 1 inch. | 
The section is then clamped in place. | 
Using a metal scribe, Marc marks the roof where the top piece of the rear window ends. |
Removing the piece again, Marc can now use the hand shear to cut the window opening to the correct size. | 
The rear window piece is then refitted and clamped in place for a final check before welding. | 
After tack welding, the final weld and hammer finishing happens. |
Because there was a gap between some of the pieces, Marc chose to widen the gap further and then fill it with a small-width piece of steel. | 
The finish weld is extended around the roof's beltline. | 
The gap created above the doors when the roof was lowered is also filled. |
With an air file and some light grinding, the area around the window is now finished off. | 
Now what is left is the big, gaping hole where the vinyl roof insert and wooden slats used to be. | 
Marc uses his plasma cutter to get rid of the stock channel that runs around the outside edge of the roof opening. |
Marcel is light enough to crawl up on top of the car (he does this with every chop that comes out of their shop) to help Marc figure out where the new piece will fit. | 
Using a section of steel that is a little larger than the opening, Marc (left) and Marcel roll the 18-gauge piece through the English wheel a few times to give the piece a slight crown (both front-to-back and side-to-side). | 
Clamping the piece in place, Marc scribes the roof to tell him where the new roof insert ends. |
The new piece is intentionally larger than the stock opening, so it overlaps the opening by about an inch all the way around. | 
The new piece is laid back into its spot, and then clamped, tacked, and finish-welded in place. | 
After removing the new piece, Marc uses the hand shear to trim away what isn't needed. |
And there you go! The chop is done, and now the focus can turn to the cowl vent, doors, and dash. |  |  |