Panel Beating Cab Door

With only a few more panels and parts left to repair, my focus has now turned to preparing the body for paint. Having only rarely lifted a hammer in anger I decided last summer to try and get on a restoration course at college to learn how to hit the van to get the dents out! After reading VolksWorld's article on their test car I decided to give North West London College a try.

Attending the college evening classes they gave me the heads up on panel beating by starting with a mini front wing. With the basics under my belt I though I'd try my luck at getting the dent out of my front door. I filed and polished up the block and hammer until both were smooth, otherwise I'd press these imperfections into the doorskin which would be rather counterproductive even by my standards. So then I got to work getting the worst of the dent out.

I pushed and beat the dent from the inside to start, then using the block on the inside started to persuade the rest of the dent through. This is hard to explain with just pictures, something I'm still trying to get right. When you get a decent strike between the hammer and the block there's a satisfying "ting" which squashes the skin and raises it up depending how hard you hit it.

With a little of the dent raised I filed over the area with a bastard file taking off the paint and showing the high areas, this let me work on the lower points.

With a bit more beating and filing you can see the skin looking smoother but the low points started to spread.

I then used a rattle can of guide coat paint to replace the paint I'd removed from filing, this stuff dries in 30 sec.

With another file over the top it reveled the a final few low spots that needed beating to get the area smooth.

This took about 2 hours, the hardest part is not hitting the panel too hard thus making it stretch and bulge. I also had to make sure that I didn't mistakenly hit the dents around their edge and end up chasing it across the panel.

Then a final coat of filler primer to protect It for now. It doesn't look too bad and not a pot of filler was opened. A coat of gloss paint should tell how good my handy work turned out.

I have just awarded myself the Panel Beater (Stage 1) badge.

It's Been A Cold And Slow Winter

We all know how cold it has been this winter so getting into the garage has not been high on the agenda. I did get myself a heater for the van but was still not brave enough to dig through the snow.

There has been another reason to keep me from working on the van and that's the new addition to the familly. A 3 months old golden labrador, she is small enough to hide under the van with variour parts from the garage floor in her mouth refusing to come out because it's too much fun; for her.

She is also good enought to inspect my panel work with her teeth, so hard to get any thing done when a cute puppy just wants to lick your ears all the time. She is rubbish at welding though, the mask keep falling off her snout.