For those of you who want to start doing some body work. When the metal gets hit it's stretchs. When it gets knocked back out there are going to be high spots in the metal that NEED to be knocked back down a little. Alot depends on the size of the dent and location, but I've found that the norm is having to knock down the highs before applying filler.

The person who did the body work on the 67 I'm working on now didn't do that. What they end up doing is applying enough mud to make it smooth, but appling WAY too much mud. I just sanded off 1/2" of bondo in the quarter panel that didn't need to be there.

So remember, take out the high spots, and save yourself a half gallon of mud. LOL http://www.camaros.net/forum/smile.gif

Have fun.

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Steve
67 SS 396,4-sp
67 RS 327,4-sp
72 RS 350/350
69 4X4 suburban 350,4-sp
73 3/4 ton 454/400
Stevo Camaro's Toy (http://www.geocities.com/stevocamaro)
Our Muscle Cars (http://community.webshots.com/user/steve_lynell)

If the metal is stretched, it's better to shrink the metal. After I took the filler off my fender, I found out the idiot bodyman knocked the high spots down and filled it. By knocking it down, he stretched the metal even more and started to oil can. I had to straighten the metal and shrink the high. If the high spot is near a low spot, DON NOT SHRINK IT. You'll need to hammer and dolly it.

Good bodymen can do some amazing things with sheetmetal. I got a replacement fender for my 67 that was tweaked a little. My dad worked on it for a while and it ended up with a few patches of body filler on it. Recently when we started working on the car again he was not pleased with the previous results and started working on the fender again. Right now, it has 1 tiny thin patch of filler on it and the rest is perfect without using filler. If someone takes their time instead of rushing a job out the door it can be as good as new.

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Rob Rice
robr54@hotmail.com
http://members.nbci.com/robr54 (http://members.xoom.com/robr54)

Remember though that the high spot doesn't all ways mean the metal is stretched. That high spot may be the "other end" of a low spot. If the low spot is brought up the high spot will come down. A good example are the dents that occur around the edge of a roof panel. These dents always seem to have a "brow" or high spot around the edges. If you can apply some pressure up on the low spot and tap down on the high spot (I said TAP) you will see the both of them "go away".

And if you are in the filling stage and a high spot appears, it is perfectly acceptable to tap (I said TAP again) this high spot down to level and leave it or apply a little more filler in the form of a scim coat. This high spot would be found in the first sanding right? So to tap it down a LITTLE, and apply a skim coat of filler (you were going to anyway) is Ok.

What the mistake would be is to hit it down and push it below just to "get it out of the way" and fill more. Also this may be being done to "kill" an oil can, WRONG. It needs to be shrunk like has been mentioned.

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Fan of anything that is interesting and moves human beings.
1965 Buick Gran Sport Convertible
1965 Buick Skylark H/T
1948 Chevy PU with 401 Buick

Martin, that's just what I meant, you said it better. What they did on this car was leave the highs, and just flop on enough mud to hide them. Lots of unecessary mud. I'm still sawing it off. http://www.camaros.net/forum/smile.gif I won't even go into the pass. door. I'm glad it's just a 1/4 miler. http://www.camaros.net/forum/smile.gif LOL

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Steve
67 SS 396,4-sp
67 RS 327,4-sp
72 RS 350/350
69 4X4 suburban 350,4-sp
73 3/4 ton 454/400
Stevo Camaro's Toy (http://www.geocities.com/stevocamaro)
Our Muscle Cars (http://community.webshots.com/user/steve_lynell)