Hot Rods fabrication schools in the South East

I've been looking around for a little while but haven't found the answers I've been looking for. Can anyone recommend any fabrication schools in the South East. I was looking into The Hot Rod Ins***ute, but

 

Did your search end in a dead end?

 

I dunno what happened to the rest of my post. It was supposed to say:

I was looking into The Hot Rod Ins***ute, but I don't want to go to South Dakota. I would like to stay within about 600 miles of North Florida. I found Stanly Community College in North Carolina and another in Georiga, but can't find any additional info on their programs. I'll be getting out of the Navy in about 11 months and would like to have all my ducks in a row before then.

 

I went to Lanier Technical College and was in the Motorsport program for 2 years before I decided being on a full-time team was not the schedule I wanted to have nor the possible inconsistency in employment and where I lived. Luckily I could change to machining easily and their department is down the hall from the motorsports cl***rooms/garage.

The program is a great general course into every type of motorsports as Road Atlanta, Atlanta Dragway and whatever they are changing Lanier Speedway into are less than 20 minutes away. You'll have pretty much any opportunity to intern locally . . . they are in very well with the Richard Petty Driving Experience and Skip Barber and people have interned with shops like Warren Johnson, Jon Kaase, Bob Vandegriff, Patrick Dempsey, Chris Smith, Kinetic Motorsports, etc. You are limited only in what you want to do.

However there's not a TON of sheet metal fabrication time (at least back in 2008/2009 when I was there) but you do take several welding courses, two carbon fiber courses, and a general metalworking/sheet metal fabrication course.

If you are looking a specific school to do ONLY "fabrication" (what I would think of as bending body panels, ch***is fabrication) Lanier may not be for you but it is considerably cheaper than any other school I had looked at like WyoTech/UTI, etc especially considering they do in-state scholarships down here in GA.

The sheet metal fabrication things I did at Lanier were mounting and bending the ducting for a large alum. radiator in an older RPDE car they had been given. Sheet metal work filling in around the fuel cell in the same car. Making motor mounts and a trans mount for a panoz roadster and doing various brackets for all kinds of things, some tools/boxes, etc.

 

Wiregr*** was the school in Georgia I was reading about. It's in Valdosta, which would be nice because it isn't far from Mayport.

I have an AS in automotive technical service. I worked in that field for a while and worked on hot rods on the side before joining the Navy. In the Navy I am a Hull Technician. We are the welders/fabricators/pipe fitters of the Navy. I will have been in for 5 years by the time I get out.

Like you said tylercrawford, bending body panels. I'm looking for training on custom panel fabrication. The English wheel, panel beating, shrinking/stretching, etc. I've done plenty of sheet metal work, but have little to no experience with complete fabrication from scratch. I can make a hell of a box, but have never made anything with curves haha.

 

I dont' know much about it, the nascar ins***ute seems to be developing a good rep.http://www.uti.edu/programs several "fields" of study or tracks to look at. Blue Ridge Community college in Hendersonville, NC had a pretty decent program for a long time to, but I think they may have closed it down.

sounds like you have some good experience and skills aready. you may want to look at lazze's cl***es or something similar rather than a full curriculum.