On Jun 3, 9:29*pm, "RogerN" wrote:
"Ed Huntress" wrote in message

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

RogerN

What failures? They were successful experiments. g

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.

--
Ed Huntress

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- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Before I had welding equipment, I did a bunch of that on the VW. Some
held, some didn't. The stuff that held was done with fiberglass mat
and repair gel from one of the local chain parts places. The approach
was to cut the hole back to solid metal, ding the edges in slightly,
remove rust and paint to bare metal, hit everything with a phosphate
rust-converter wash, then clean everything off to squeakiness with
acetone(was cheap when I did it). I cut a chunk of mat for the back
side, one for the front side and then made up a holder from thin
welding filler rod. This had an L hook bent into it, the purpose was
to hold the back in place while plastering the front piece on. The
idea was to sandwich the existing metal at the edges, approximate the
contours of the surface and hold things together while the gel set,
about 5-10 minutes in the summer. I had a poly board made for mixing
bondo that I used for the gel and a bunch of scraper/spatula
applicators of various sizes intended for bondo. They worked well for
impregnating the mat and anything stuck on just popped off
afterwards. After the stuff set up, I left it for a day and went at
it with body files, sander and block. Looked OK after it was primed
and painted, the places where I filled in the rocker panel holes don't
even show 10 years later. Was not so lucky on inner fender holes, had
to be redone about 5 years later. Probably too much flexing and
impacts from road trash and rocks. Now I'd just weld patches on. So
it CAN be done. If the damage is in an area where fuel lines run and
you'd rather not drop the tank and flush things out, fiberglass
repairs might be the answer. Need absolutely clean metal for it to
stick. I really liked the gel for this, regular resin would just run
away.

Stan