<VV> Body advise

[Alan and Clare Wesson]

Show me a photo of a dented door you have shrunk well enough not to need 
bondo, Smitty, and I will give you huge respect. I am a perfectionist, and I 
have straightened many door panels as close as I can to perfection - and I 
have never shrunk one so that it needs no bondo.

And with respect, neither have you!

Cheer

Alan


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <vairologist at juno.com>
To: <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 2:36 AM
Subject: <VV> Body advise


>
>
>> From: "Alan and Clare Wesson" <alan.wesson at atlas.co.uk>
>
>> As a demo of what I mean, I would dearly love to hear from anyone
>> (pictures please) who has repaired a large dent in the middle of a Vair
> door,
>> and has used no bondo at all in the process. I would genuinely be very
>> interested to hear how they did it.
>>
>> The reason is that when steel is dented, it stretches, and so although
> the
>> dent can be largely knocked out and planished, and the door can be
>> returned to 99% of its original state, it is impossible to return it to
> stock
>> because the metal is stretched and absolutely cannot retain its
> original
>> shape. The only way this can be achieved is surface filling using
> bondo, and
>> 99.99% of bodyshops (not us though) leave ripples in the bondo that are
>
>> visible when you look along the side of the car from the front or back.
>>
>> Similarly, the heat from welding stretches and distorts the metal, and
> it
>> cannot regain its original shape. Good people (my guy) can get  close,
> but
>> some surface filling is still vital
> ---------------------------------
> Smitty says:  How wrong you are my island inhabiting friend.  I am hardly
> a master at the craft but I have shrunk a good many square yards of body
> sheet metal in my time.  The process can shrink a hailstone type dent,
> and on a larger scale can shrink a big "belly" in a panel that has been
> stretched by working it to remove minor dents and wrinkles.  I have no
> pictures but it goes like this.  Using a gas torch a spot is heated,
> moving the flame in a circular motion around a 1" circle and bringing the
> circle tighter untill the flame is heating the center of the circle.
> Timing is a skill thing as the desired condition is to get to the center
> of the circle just as the metal comes just beyond red heat and moving
> toward yellow.  The spot will be so expanded from the heat it will poke
> out like a pimple toward the flame.  Quickly placing a body dolly behind
> the spot and using a planishing hammer the high spot is knocked down
> flat, being careful to not smash the metal between the hammer and the
> dolly.  By doing this you have thickened the metal that was heated and it
> brings great stress upon the surrounding metal pulling it inward.  By
> judiciously spotting in this manner you can shrink the metal as needed to
> flatten dents without the use of more than a couple of mils of putty or
> filler.  I have over done this a couple of times and pulled the curve out
> of a panel too far.  Had to go back over it and dolly the panel carefully
> to put the proper curve back in it.
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