Auto Body metal working

BTDT. The HF guns are excellent. You need a good DA sander, an inline sander, and a good sanding block for finishing. Also good quality sandpaper. The cheap stuff will makethe job much harder.

sander.txt and the accociated jpgs.

JC Whitney sells a lot of replacement body repair panels for trucks

to find what you need there. JR Dweller in the cellar

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Roger, To do this right, you need to make a significant investment in sheet metal tools, which should include a sheer, a brake, rolls, a shrinker, sheet metal hammers, dollies planishing pillows and hammers, as well as several other less significant items. Most of the cost of these can be avoided if you use preformed replacement panels. Of course, this will not help you achieve the skill set of hand forming custom panels, but it does make economic sense. Please also note, that back yard repairs done incorrectly will devalue the vehicle. Please also note that the investment required is not just money, but significant time and very hard work. There are very few people with these old fashioned skill sets still alive today. You will not achieve these with just the experience from one vehicle. Another, not well understood fact is that the sheet metal used in vehicles today is much thinner than what used to be used. Consequently, almost all panel damage results in stretched metal, making panel repair impractical. Additionally, the odds of you achieving the skill set you wish to have is about "0" without instruction from a master. I don't mean to rain on your parade, but you should go into this with your eyes open. Steve

"RogerN" wrote in message news:ouOdnS5_oofJjJrRnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com...

had a clunker to play with. Since buying my Ford

months or so, maybe the 4wd will sell good around

drive train so it's an opportunity for me to try some

to be formable, weldable, and close to the

to try forming with hammers, sand bags, and

Freight HVLP paint guns, they liked them better

sanders/ power wet sander? I have a Porter-Cable

probably get a slide hammer type puller.

of Oxford White, no metallic, no pearl, no clear,

reasonable competitive price.

skills along the way, and it will hopefully help the

spend more than it will help the value but I get to

one comment on steve's suggestions below (which are pretty good) - if the truck has no collector value, a quick tack on of metal over rusted areas and some properly applied body filler and paint may add $$ to the truck, a little hammer and dolly experience is good, and if you can use a gas welder, you can shrink panels if you really want to, though it is a PITA.

Many people go to Eastwood.

I've never used them myself so I can't give a personal recommendation. Karl

The part I want to do the metal work from raw sheet is a hole in the door probably done by Bobcat, the guy I purchased from used it to pull his Bobcat around in his landscaping business. So, that part is sort of in the middle of the door where the metal is fairly flat and it doesn't look rusted, looks like someone put house paint over it. I don't think I want to try to re-skin the door for the hole. The other metal shaping toys are just for fun, I'd like to play with sheet metal and try to learn to shape it like they do on the Chopper TV programs. For the rusted thru above the wheel fenders I plan to try ready made replacement panels. Other than that there are many places where it is scratched or banged up a little, this truck was used to do work and shows is.

RogerN

Take a look at the Tinman's site:

You've gotten good advice from others about the frustration of working with today's thin body sheet metal, which is often a HSLA (high-strength low-alloy) that is particularly nasty. It work-hardens if you look at it cross-eyed.

However, you can have a heck of a lot of fun learning to shape other kinds of sheet metal. I've tried it, with the sandbag and stump methods. I produce something that looks like waves in a stormy sea. Better luck to you. It requires persistence.

A small MIG welder is very useful. The Lincoln SP135+ is excellent because heat is continuously variable.

Good auto paint is pricey, and well worth it.

Use a respirator OSHA-rated for auto paint. They're about 25 bux.

Modern cars use very thin high-strength steel that is about unworkable, but older trucks are made of more tractiable stuff. I've even made patches from the skin of an old water heater.

This is a very useful tool:

Freight offers the same tool. It makes a flange in one part and punches holes in the other. You then place the repair part, hold it with cleco's or sheetmetal screws, and fill the holes with the MIG.

That sounds a trifle steep. I bought a pint of metallic beige to match a Toyota Corolla, it was about $40 at O'Reilly's. My understanding from them was that it would have cost only a little more for a quart. You may want to check around at other auto parts stores.

-- Terry

I guess you weren't trying to make waves in a stormy sea? You can always sell your failures as modern art!

RogerN

Here in Kitchener Ontario there is a place called KW Surplus ( we call it KW Surprise) and they had about 25 gallons of white automotive enamel (Dupli-Color brand, I think) for $31 Canadian per (american) Gallon.

For rust repair and damage repair it's best to cut out the damaged area to solid metal and using a "flanger" form a recessed rim around the hole. Then you cut and shape standard body metal (mild steel, not the high strength garbage) to fit into the recess. a couple rivits or sheet metal screws will hold it in place 'till you get it welded - then weld the holes shut (or use what the pros use - "clecos". You can hammer and dolly the seam flat, or just fill the seam with bondo and feather it out. Putting new metal over old rested metal just guarantees the job won't last. - and it makes it REAL hard to make a nice job.

What failures? They were successful experiments.

I was working 3003 aluminum, and it's tricky to shrink it with hand tools. It can be done; you just need to develop some expertise.

Like a lot of metalworking pursuits, you have a few choices. If you want to build replica bodies or something, you'll need all the tools or a lifetime of learning and practice. (You'll still need a lot of both, even with all the tools.) Or you can confine yourself to making simple patch panels without much crown, and do it all with hand tools (and the flanger that a couple of folks have mentioned) -- and patience.

I had no interest in making a lifetime hobby out of it, so I just tried the hand methods. I made my own wooden hammers and sand bag; I hollowed out a stump with my disc sander; and I made my own slappers. My total investment, including the dollies and metal hammers that I bought, was less than $150.

It was fun to play with it and to get an idea of what's involved. And I could see how some people get a lot of pleasure out of it. Doing it well is a real art.

If you look at the Tinman's pages, you'll see some of the art at its highest level.

Most of the complex parts can be found as patch panels. You basically cut out the old. Leave a small lip, flange the lip so the panel sets flush and MIG or TIG them in. Grind the welds smooth, then apply a THIN layer of filler and board sand it flat. Then use a good primer and finish coat it. Unless you have a nice temperature controlled storage place and don't plan on moving the vehicle while your working on it you may want to shoot the panel with paint as soon as you get each panel done. Doesn't have to be a perfect coat but primer on it's own have a nasty habit of being hygroscopic.

Get a current copy of Hot Rod Magazine. Nice article on patching floor pans.

Paul

Many people go to Eastwood.

've never used them myself so I can't give a personal recommendation. Karl

I have used Eastwood for several years, I find them to be just what they say they are fair priced and quick.

Roger Paskell

I'm not wanting to spend the time and money to do auto body professionally or anything like that. The part I would like to form is almost flat, I need to patch a hole in the side of a door, not much shaping to it. One idea I have for rust repair, not sure if it's any good, is to make a male mold by building up a panel with bondo and shaping. Then use that bondo patch to make a mold to lay up fiber glass repair panels. Trim the sheet metal back, knock out the temporary bondo plug used for the mold, and glue the fiberglass patch to the metal. The idea being that the fiberglass wouldn't rust in a place where the metal did.

RogerN

Thanks for all the info and links!

RogerN

One thing I'm wanting to find out about is feathering paint. For example, if I have a spot to repair, I would sand down the spot and feather the edges to the good paint surface. Then in spraying first coat on the spot, 2nd coat covers a little larger area, and the 3rd coat covers a larger area still. Then after that I guess you use rubbing compound to smooth it all out? If I understand this correctly you are applying the most paint where it's been sanded down the most and getting the new spray thinner as the original paint is thicker (sanded less). If I were capable of doing this perfect the paint would be the same thickness in the touch up area as the factory paint is in other parts of the body.

RogerN

Interesting thought. I would anticipate trouble. I made extensive fiberglass rust-repair patches on my mother's '69 T-bird, in the '70s. I was pretty good with fiberglass then because I had been a bonder at Ranger Yachts. I used Plaster of Paris to make a male mold over the rusted-out areas, and then to pull the female mold from that. That, too, is a material I had a lot of experience with at the time.

We could write a book about this but here are some basic issues: Although Bondo is filled polyester, and it works as a body filler, it doesn't get a very good bond to steel. The chemical bond is almost nonexistent; most of what you get is a mechanical, cogging bond with freshly ground and roughened metal. I realize it isn't Bondo that you're talking about for the final patch, but you should be aware that polyester in general makes a lousy adhesive, compared to epoxy.

I actually used epoxy on the fiberglass cloth to make my first patches, because it gets a much better bond to steel. It's very difficult to work with on vertical surfaces and with fiberglass cloth (you *must* use cloth and mat made for use with epoxy if you're going to use that stuff for your resin). Polyester is much easier. You can consider making patches out of polyester and fiberglass and then bonding them to the steel with epoxy, but polyester and epoxy, too, get only a weak bond. The bond between them is almost all mechanical, too, because epoxy doesn't bond to styrene, which makes up a fair amount of the polyester resin. You also have to be super careful to remove the amine blush if you're bonding *to* hardened epoxy, and the wax if you're bonding *to* hardened polyester. Soap and water remove the blush. Sanding is useless to remove amine; it just spreads the amine around. Use acetone to remove the wax from polyester. It will pull off some of the surface styrene, too, which will help.

Then you have issues with different coefficients of thermal expansion for steel and fiberglass-reinforced resin. I had one patch pop off at one end on a hot day. I'm not certain why, but I think the differential expansion put a lot of stress on the bond.

Anyway, you may find it works perfectly for you, or it may be a mess. One thing I can tell you for sure: it's a lot harder than you would think, to get the patch level with the steel and smooth. You could cheat with Bondo, but then you have more weakness.

Maybe it will be no problem. But I doubt it.