Been working on the right rear fender on my 52 chevy truck. I got a cheap hammer and dolly set and made a *******. What gauge material are the fenders made out of? I have uploaded some pictures to photobucket to show you all what I am working with. Any tips on how I can go about this? I have a welder. Does anybody have any pictures of the inside of the fender so I compare to make sure I get mine correct. I noticed an additional piece was added to the lip where the fender meets the box side. Are you all cutting this off to remove rust from between the two pieces and adding a new piece making it all one piece? If you guys don't mind checking out the pics of my fender and offer suggestions, I'd really appreciate it. This is my first attempt at sheet metal work. I don't have an english wheel or shrinker/stretcher. Here is a link to the pictures. http://s615.beta.photobucket.com/user/FarmerSid/library/1952 Chevy Truck/Bodywork? Thanks all!
You can look at your outher fender for the shape you need if you need to remove the reinforcement strip and dont have the shrinker strecher you can use a hammer and dolly and hit the strip on one edge and it will strech it to make the curve needed. I would guess its 18 gauge
From your comment I can see you putting 40 hours into that fender,,if you are a cheap ******* like me it may go to 60 hours, I had no choice for binder fenders, none available but in hindsight any manufacturers repop would have looked fine and been a lot less work,,,a new repop for your truck $400.00,,,smoothing out that fender is all fun.
I don't mind the work as I'm a cheap ******* as well. $800 will buy a lot of beer and time in the shop. It would be nice to see some detailed pictures of the inside of these fenders to see what they should look like so I can replicate it. The curves of these fenders seem to make this tricky. It's looking like I may need the front lower portion of the rear fender patch panel. The rear lower seems to be not available. I've been watching all kinds of video's on hammer and dolly, shrinking discs etc. They all seem to say that you should be using the off dolly method to knock down the high spots. All my dents are pushed inwards which would be low spots. I'm cornfused. It would be nice to see a dent free fender inside and out to see what they should look like.
Well I have been working on this fender most of the day. Easier said than done. I used some 18g I had to practice making patches. I used the method where you cut a patch out, tack it over top of the damaged area and follow the outline of the patch to cut out the bad part of the fender. Worked pretty good but I now see the importance of keeping the gap pretty small. The thickness of the cutoff wheel is almost too much. I'm using 1/32" I think. Places where the panel was pretty much tight welded the best. I think from now on I will trace the outline of the patch on the fender and zip disk it out a hair small and sand down the patch to fit so I have barely any gap. A bit but not much. Another situation I encountered is that these rear fenders are curved in both directions and it makes it hard to curve the patch when you don't have an english wheel. Any tips on curving the patch to match the fender curvature? How much filler or high build primer is acceptable? This fender is full of tiny dents that would require about a 64th of an inch of filler or maybe a 32nd. Can't seem to get the hang of the hammer and dolly thing. I understand the dolly on the dent and hammer around from above but I can't get the dent to move up. I'm afraid to hit it any harder than I already am. Need a little guidance. I will up load a few new pictures.
look up the little red book called "The Key To Metal Bumping". Its cheap, and explains the proper techniques for do hammer and dolly work. You should not have to hit the metal very hard, just in the rite places at the proper time. You also want to work the damage in revers of how it was caused. If a dent started in one spot and ended in the deepest part of the damage you should start on the shallow part and work it up from their. -Dane
It looks like a lot of the places you might be trying to hammer out are welds of some patch work. Also if the panel has already been beat on a lot it will work harden and become brittle and hard to manipulate.
I whould grind all or most of the rust off the inside of the fender it may help with the dolly and hammer work so you can fill the bumps eazer.
I welded in two small (3"X3" or so) patches on the fender around the wheel well opening. Wondering if high build primer will help fix this or if how it sits now will require too much filler or high build primer.
What do you all think of the hammer and dolly set I am using? There are two more hammers in the kit but not shown. I made the *******. It almost seems like I need a dolly that is 2 or 3 in round and concave. The ones I have are all curved in one direction only except for the long curved one. It seems no matter how hard I try to put a dolly under the low spot and hammer from above around the dent, I seem to most of the time be hitting the dolly. I enjoy this type of stuff but get frustrating when your trying your hardest to do things correctly like I have been reading and watching to only get no results. I mean hours trying this with markers, machinist blue, various grits of sand paper and the dent is still there.
64th or 32nd of an inch of filler is not alot. Also I have used a hammer and a bowling ball to shape compound curves in small patches. If you want to be really cool you can make a stand out of a banjo rear end axle bell to hold the ball. My wife wants to steal mine and make it into a garden ball.LOL For the concave you can get a thick piece of hardwood and grind a bowl shape into it. I try to keep thngs simple.
Hey Farmer Sid, For a guy who's never done sheetmetal repair your work is lookin great! I'd suggest for those low areas you just can't seam to move with a hammer or dolly that you turn over the fender, sand the area your workin with a sanding block and some 80 production paper. The areas the sanding block first comes in contact with are low areas ( high areas on the inside of the fender), those that look shiney once sanded. Now take a semi-flat shaped dolly and hold it firmly over the outside of the fender, over those high spots (inside of the fender) and tap the low areas up with a semi round faced bumping hammer, NOT a pick hammer. You can use a small ball pein hammer for this, but tap, don't hit the metal like you were driving a nail. Stop often, and check your progress by running your hand over the outside of the fender. Does the area match the surrounding metal's shape? If you're careful, you can get most of the damage up without causing additional stretching, which is what you're shootin for. I see several areas that will require shrinking before the fender is ready for mud or primer, but for now work those low up. We can talk about shrinking later, but for the areas of the panel that are hardened and buckled, you may wanna try a propane or MAPP gas torch, and heat just those areas to a bleuish eat, whyle you try bumping them up. If shaping those patches becomes a problem, you can induce shape into them once they're welded in by on & off dolly work. Just be sure to get as much shape as you can by twisting or bending them over a dolly or pipe clamped into the bench vise. Work look great! '' Meanwhyle, back aboard The Tainted Pork "
Thanks for the vote of confidence pimpin paint. I need it. I wondered if I could pound out the dents from the inside and use heat but I have yet to read anything to suggest doing that. I wanted to start out by doing things that I had read or watched and not do anything other than those things suggested as I didn't want to make things worse.
When you rub your hand over the fender to fill the dents use a paper towel between your hand and the fender it makes it eazyer to fill the dents.
Farmer, I think he means "feel" the dents. I'm working on a '29 body which isn't too bad other than the traditional patch panels, but my goal is less than an 1/8" on the filler. Experts get better, our reslults may vary! Keep at it, looking good. I also try to force the filler pieces in from the backside, then trace an outline through the hole. And sometimes cut the hole bigger so it's not too irregular. tacking it in from the backside also saves some grinding on the finish side. Things I've learned by reading a lot here. RB
Get yourself a least one good hammer. You can make dollys out of all kinds of stuff. (steel lead hard wood) Some of what you have to deal with is pretty wrinkled. Even if your putting in a patch you should smooth the surrounding area. Make some sort of planishing stand to set the fender on. Use it as your dolly
Some good advice Tin bender and RB35. You both pointed out some things I'm going to try. None of the dents on my fender would require 1/8" of filler. The things that worries me is the front and rear lower portions of the fender. They all have been patched or fixed in the past and I have no good example to go by to make sure my curvature is correct. The tight bends on the lower front of the fenders where they attach to the running boards are hard for me to replicate as I don't have a shrinker stretcher or an english wheel to make them. The fenders in my pictures are worse than they appear. If you look along the wheel opening lip when the fender is laying on the bench, it's not straight. I have no way to replicate the 3/8" or what ever it is radius. I can make the 3/8" radius but then it has the curve to it that I can't do. I got 0.023 wire and new drive rolls for my 252 Miller and that has made my welds easier.
Hey Farmer Sid, To reproduce those 3/8'' radius shapes try this: bend some 3/8'' round stock to the shapes you wanna build, yeah, a little blacksmithing's gonna be needed, like a torch, vise & BFH! Once you have bent the round stock to shape, form your patches around the bent/shaped round stock pieces, and if necessary, clamp them into the fender flange area, to help you align the patches whyle you're fitin & welding. Once you've got a shape you can live with, tack and remove the roundstock pieces, weld and hammerweld to finish out the repair. There are ways other than a shrinker / stretcher to shrink and stretch sheetmetal, like '' tuck shrinking " and " gathering ", but if you have to, you can cut small slits in the areas of those flanges where they have to stretch or shrink. Once you have your shape, weld up the slits, grind /file to finish. " I like the old millenium better "
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