1957 Sandblasted Coupe

[JTR70]

Swing by your neighborhood Lowes or Home Depot I bought all three of my WISS cutters from Lowes years ago.

[Drew.s]

Hi Steve
I've been using these for some time with good results.
Also buy an angle grinder with variable speed as it helps you control the cut.
Remember full face mask with these bad boys.



Regards
Drew

[ukinusa]

Thanks Drew - never (knowingly) seen those -where did you source them ...

And to others WISS it will be.

Cheers

[John Pierce]

As Phil said: the Dremel "Thin Cut" are the thinnest out there, but they do not last long and are expensive. The regular sized Dremels aren't that much wider, but last longer.

Snips and Dremels at HD or Lowes.


John

[Drew.s]

Hi Steve
I have been getting my discs from ebay.co.uk
If you have problems getting them from the UK shout and I will buy some and send them to you.
By the way Makita also do a 0.8mm disc but I haven't tried it.

Regards
Drew

[ukinusa]

Thanks Drew and John (and others), I am now set up with new sharp snips (& disks) - what a pleasure to have sharp tools, amazing how one fails to see 'dullness' creeping in !

Several small but useful steps.

The support tube bracket needed replacing - so nice to get new metal in place- well almost in place Was about to tack it in to make sure I could get the fender extended out and support the angles for the front new patches, when it dawned on me that it would impossible to get the headlight bowl located properly over the tube (or at least it would be very hard).

Old and new - portions of the old headlight bowl still attached.


Then moved on the inner wall where damp from behind the sound insulation had rotted the wall (lest my suspicion) .

Before


After


Match


Then onto the front - I had already cut this 'bubba' work out (he gets around) and used a section from my new panel for the appropriate section.

Bubba special- "The Hedge Hog"




New being inserted





There is slight 'valley' I have to resolve between the patch and headlight area, but will get the headlight section installed before I try to do too much pushing and pulling - it's all too flexible right now. However getting the support brace (almost) installed gives me a good matching distance from inner body to (outer) fender rolled edge, the fender mounting bolt holds the bracket pretty much in place, combined with pressure from the fender pushing 'in'.

Now, the question for the day !
The bumper over-rider support tube holes had been plated over and 'messed' with. Can someone with an 'A' please give me the ID of the hole - and the relative distance from the horn opening - perhaps referencing the mounting screw hole for the grill ? (It looks marginally higher that the light fitting hole on the left of the horn opening.
It's not too far off but it's not good either

Thanks in anticipation.

[JTR70]

Some nice progress there Steve! I'm in the midst of fitting those exact fender braces. Are you experiencing this?

Units are welded together just a touch too tight to slide under the brkt mount and reach the hole.

Simplest fix was to cut the bottom welds free and reset the width.

Initial problem solved but I have since had to go much further.

and yes I'm having bucket alignment issues with the tube as well. Are your buckets original or from Dansk like the rest of these parts? I've ended up cutting the braces completely apart and am in process of re assembling them to suit. I need to get my build caught back up.
I feel your pain...
Justin

[John Pierce]

Nice work, Steve. With Bubba, you always feel like you're not getting anywhere. You're just cutting out and putting in the same piece of metal that if done correctly the first time would've save a lot of hassle.

John

[Don C]

+1 on that John!

[ukinusa]

The brackets were from Stoddard. Seem to fit height wise but the tube presentation to the bucket is almost like yours
Will take some pictures to compare. Hadn't thought about bracket disassembly ! Will see about separating the tube from the vertical and 45' support piece once it's back in.

[ukinusa]

Catching up.
Set the cut panel for the headlight area in place and screwed it in place. The bucket and support tubes lined up pretty well but will need more working.





The patch, when screwed in place, pushed the rolled out edge of the fender to match the distance of the other side - at about 43cm (+/- a couple of mm)- measured from on top of the bumper support bracket to the roll. A nice surprise. The support tube helped hold it out.





Having got the distance equaled (above) I started to cut it in & tack it, section by section.





I had not gone far when things started to go wrong...the edge at 7/8 o'clock "blistered out", so I ended up cutting 4 relief cuts (only first show) - that helped and I got it to lay down (almost correctly)



Then worse was to come, the area from 9-12 o'clcok was really not working. The bulge was so extensive, that I decided on a number of relief cuts, intuitively I cut in an angle, all the time feeling slightly sick to my stomach . I had no previous experience to guide me, but I figured I could always cut the whole thing out and buy a new nose from Trevor !





All seemed to be going fairly well, but the only answer was to close it up see how it looked.

In the earlier problem in the lower area, a slight bulging can still be seen.



so I got the torch out and heat shrank it back - another first !



The area that now needed attention was the deep curve between the headlight/top of fender, across to the hood gutter. The area had been uniformly depressed by upto 1/2". By comparing the curve of the good side, the ruler clearly showed the problem.





and again....




I cut the metal at about 2" gaps, reducing the metal strip width by about 1/8" +/- and rejoined the strip. By constantly matching backwards and forwards to the good side, I could replicate the good curve and 'lift' the damage back up.





I will have to grind and dress the bottom and top edges.. I have brought some nice long spoons and will be spending a lot of hours working the metal to shape it, getting the curves 'more' smoothed. This level of metal dressing is proving a challenge, thank goodness for U-tube !

There was a NOS fender section on the R site ads. last month; I think should have gone for it, however budget pushes me on this way. Hopefully this genuine POS panel will eventually work out - it seems really was a case of penny wise and dollar foolish.

[JTR70]

All those pie-cuts are bringing back some bad memories for me Steve. A necessary evil if the damn thing isn't going to line up unfortunately. Looks like you're getting it under control though, keep up the good fight! Eventually it will submit. If it doesn't turn out to your satisfaction I can personally attest to the accuracy and shape of Trevor's new nose panel. It is very nice and accurately shaped. An option might be to cut your left section free and sell it to offset some of the cost or sell the other half of the Trevor nose; less work that way depending how nice your other side is. Just thinking of other ways to help you skin this cat. Like that profiling tool BTW, where did you get it?
Justin

[ukinusa]

Thanks for some reassurance....the tool came from Germany. Currently I am in England with grandkids, back next week and will post details . then...

So I am back stateside...to clear blue skies and dry - gotta love it.

Anyway its called a PROFILEMASTER. I brought it direct from a supplier in Germany. Mine has 6 section of 20cm each - so can do quite a large profile. (See middle paragraph unless you are multilingual !)

[ukinusa]

It's taken a while, but around The Holiday Season (I want to be more culturally sensitive and after I got from a break in UK, I realized that I am in over my head, beyond my level of expertise, beaten down and generally barking up the wrong tree

There are several folks on this board who no doubt could have worked this misshaped replacement fender into some sort of correct shape and made it "work", but after 3 to 4 months of metal work, I'm calling it quits. I have contacted Trevor and have a nice new nose on order that will, I hope, actually match the profile of the car. While more expensive (in material costs), in the long term it will actually give me a better finish. The labor was not all lost of course, as I have learnt a great deal - no pain no gain (and all that cr**)...



I will only use the one side (left in the picture - passenger side) as the other original side is in great shape, so I will be looking to sell that unused half in the near future.(Could bring to Lit Meet maybe.)


In The Mean Time:

In the mean time I have not been idle While I await my new nose, I moved onto the battery /front floor area. I found that I had, in places, three levels of metal floor laid down on top of each other. The spot welding was copious (is that normal in this area? ) and so it took a fair while to dig my way down and rebuild all the edges and rear of the battery storage recess.



peeling it back a layer at a time...


Repair the front...


And the back ...


Get my support edges sorted and hole punched...


Get my template made...


and finally get the floor to shape. A tight fit and had to remove one of the mountings for the wheel jack to get it in ...


screwed in ... and much dressing will be needed as I work around. But a good overall fit. At last something that fits - almost


I have been using copper weld thru ...

I love the idea of protected seams where you cant get to them in future. HOWEVER, for me, it is royal PITA to get the welder to strike and melt in the plugs. I have found that scratching the copper off (blunted drill bit) where there is metal behind, makes welding it sooooooo much easier. Where there has been a screw hole - well that is just perfect for plug welding of course.

So "weld thru" - sure is a great idea, and I will continue to use it, but maybe my technique is screwy !

[Phil Planck]

Steve
Went through your frustration on a badly damaged and repaired fender. Eventually gave up and installed a partial new one.
Phil