51 Ford pickup

[Motown 454]

Any progress is good!

[wfo guy]

I spent the evening sanding on the front end parts. A couple of days with hammer and dolly will make them way better. Yecch!

[Gojeep]

Getting there my friend. Thanks for showing your progress.

[wfo guy]

I spent 2 hours with an assortment of hammers and dollies on the lower fenders this evening. The dents are more like ripples now. I don't think I will be able to metal finish them. I'm moving on to the next step in the operation.

[Gojeep]

Ripples are often a sign of excess material from stretching from the original damage or using a steel hammer on steel dolly to remove it. I find using a nylon headed mallet against a steel dolly will allow them to be flattened without adding more stretch. Sometimes I use a dolly made from wood or lead filled rubber with a steel hammer for the same purpose. One face or the other has to have some give so the metal has some where to go without being thinned and stretched even more. That and doing it all off dolly as much as possible. Any extra left can be removed with a shrinking disc. I know you said you didn't have one, but cheap enough to buy and find even the small 5" one from Wray does a good job. http://www.proshaper.com/product/5-d...hrinking-disk/

[wfo guy]

Gojeep, I think I'll order one. I'll look at the info later and see what size will be the most useful. Thank you.

[ekmxryda]

I used the back side of a fine grit 4 1/2" fiber backed sanding disc for all my shrinking, worked pretty good but I am sure the real shrinking disc would be easier.

http://www.use-enco.com/1/1/13111-00...ber-discs.html

[wfo guy]

I started playing with shrinking disk repairs. I'm working on the lower fenders. There are spots I made good progress and areas that weren't so good. One more skill to learn!
Eric, I'm trying your method because that's what I had available in short order.

[Motown 454]

From what I've seen you do so far, you'll get it.

[wfo guy]

Blasting away! What could be more fun on a nice fall afternoon. The shot of the fender is in progress. I should get the rest of the front sheet metal blasted today. In case anyone is curious, I have purchased 60 bags of blasting material. I think I have enough to finish the hood. I don't want to let anyone think I know much about blasting so I maybe wasting as I go. I did shrink some areas on the fenders. Some more progress.

[wfo guy]

I ran 8 bags today. I'm about to be tired.

[Gojeep]

Glad it is working out for you.

[wfo guy]

I've spent the last 2 evenings welding cracks that I didn't see before blasting and pounding on dents. I need another month of warm weather and I'm pretty sure that isn't going to happen. The hood has 2 rust spots that arrived after blasting. I'm going to make plates to fill the openings at the front. Just more work.

[wfo guy]

Just in case anyone thinks I'm not working. Notice I didn't say "making progress".

[Gojeep]

Easy to spend a lot of time on things that are not photo worthy. Doing that now too, just stripping paint and fixing minor damage!

[RaceFace]

I ran across this thread yesterday afternoon and have read the whole thing. You have done a great job with this build!! Sorry to see the donor car ended up being more of an issue than a help. Keep up the great work! I'm soooo keeping my eye on this thread now!!

[wfo guy]

Break time. Front of the hood filled and the 2 rust repairs on the brace area.

[wfo guy]

Epoxy primer wherever I could shoot it. This is rust preventive. Some of the parts will have to be flipped in the next day or so and the other side shot.

[wfo guy]

TLU! (totally lackluster update), I primed the other side of all the front end sheet metal this evening. Ho Hum.

[cbpldc]

Some progress is better than no progress!