Hello together,
here is what I found out during the preparation of my reengineering project. There were (at least) three versions of lids produced in the serial die.
When new, the die had no take up beads at all. Because the differences of the lengths of line in the area over the "nosetip" and underneath were very big, slight wrinkles/waves ocurred in the licence plate area. So Hebmueller started to optimise this "problem" trying out different metal take up bead shapes. I know two cars having the big beads (one of them is body number 223). The small beads were chosen for serial production.
I have an original photo from summer 49, showing the original die during try-out of the different bead shapes. As you can see in the pic the punch (lower die) shows all of the bead geometries. In the upper die the geometric variation took place by welding on / removing the "male" counterpart of the beads. Interesting: you can see all versions in this one photo. Two bead versions on the punch, big beads on the cut out part and no beads on the drawn parts infront of the press.
I do not know why Hebmueller chose the smaller beads for serial production. I think it was, because you cannot hide the big beads behind a small registration plate as used in some countries, but this is a guess.
Fact is : the try out took place in 49 and some of the parts with the big beads were used on production cars. I cannot say anything about the number but the latest cars (and all of the cars at least starting from october 1949 that I have ever seen) show the small beads.
Greetings from Germany
Dr.D.
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