Looking for some advice on best path forward. I need to straighten out a bent up stainless-Steel 50 Merc grille. I decided to remove the bracing to free it up into 4 more manageable pieces. That’s as far as I have gone. Having never before worked stainless steel I thought I should seek some advice! Thanks Ron
Straightened a damaged 51 a couple years ago. Basically just started moving it around by hand. Carefully used pliers in a couple places. A block of wood shaped to fit inside the bar can be used to tap the shape back in place
Thanks Anthony! That was going to be my plan. What about using heat? Any benefits or just more potential for amateur to screw up? Or just stick with cold bending and going slow?
I didn’t use heat. The pliers were used to carefully flatten out the kinks on the side of the bars after they were reshaped
No to heat, the bluing will be hard to remove for a novice. S/S will require a lot of patient sanding working down through the grits until it’s ready to buff. It’s a hard metal ,so be prepared.
I use a small jewelers hammer and either a wood backing as Anthony suggested or a small anvil or bench vise. The small jewelers hammer ensures light tapping not forceful blows. Do not get overzealous. I start with a very fine single cut jewelers file to assure smoothness followed by more tapping and filing then switch to the sanding as Kiwi 4d said before polishing usually ending with 4000 grit wet sanding before final polishing. It takes time and patience but will reward you with a better than factory finish.
Thanks Anthony/Kiwi/Warhorse for the feedback! Will take your advice and work it cold and slow and patiently
I've fixed many of them. I lake a piece if wood, about 3/8-1/2 thick, put it inbetween the spokes and trace the shape with a pencil. Then cut it out, sand it as smooth as you can. Then just use it as a spade. Tap lightly, a little at a time, grill face down, then turn it over and tap the spokes to finish it off. Then take a really fine file to get rid of any high spots, if any. Then, you just have to polish it. They came chrome and stainless. The stainless ones are much easier to fix. No rechrome. That one doesn't look too bad. I wouldn't have cut it up though.
Thanks Bob for wood template trick … I planed down some oak cut some templates tonight, still need to trim to account for the slight taper of the spokes, but on my way with plan at least … Cutting them apart makes them a lot easier to work with, definitely not necessary for many on this forum. I am also planning on changing it around from stock so may help out with my plan in the end as well …
49 and 50 are the same. They aren't very expensive, I've paid as little as $100 for a good set, $400 for a perfect set. Yours looked good enough to fix. Any worse, and I would have just bought a new set, or side. If you look at the HAMB Mercury Club thread, there's 100's of grill ideas.
the guy I bought this from said ii was going to need a fender, grill, bumper and bumper pan. All it needed was a headlight bezel
Anyone know if there are dimensional differences between the stainless steel and chrome grills? I just noticed that the stainless grill I am straightening is about an inch taller than my chrome grills! Seems odd they would be different …
Lots of good ideas here. I messed with three different grills before I settled on the one I am now using on my '49 Ford. On one there were several damaged. I cut them out, and gently moved them back to original. NO HEAT, then soldered them back together from the back side. worked pretty well, but not show car quality. Be aware they are very sharp. Also I am a low buck blue collar build guy, and on the first one I bought I cut several of them out, and replaced with light gauge strips covered with chrome (padded) stick on stuff.... Actually worked quite well.
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