1930 Ford Sheetmetal Work

[Flop]

Hey guys new to posting to the ford barn. 25 years old from Pittsburgh.

Customers car. He wants it all stock. Just figured you guys would enjoy some sheetmetal work and the fiasco of new patch panels that i am going through. All the sheetmetal work is tig welded and as close to metal finished as possible.

needs typical patch panels but man is this car solid

mess

needs some sub frame work

gotta fix this hole.seems like ti was made with a chisel

tight gaps are important

see what i mean by tight?! see that little slit

this is gonna be a pain in the ***!!

the ol tape and bondo trick

fillin some random holes

some holes in the visor

some kinda mess from ages ago

 

[Flop]

and we are donnne

my guess was an antenna?

more random taped up holes i found.

some more damage

a few marks left from the stud gun

these are gonna be no fun. body line doesnt match to save its life

 

[Flop]

1 thing i learned is you can really beat 16 gauge sheetmetal.

heres another poorly made non fitting heater hole patch panel.

the mess im working with

fit

notice the extra 1/8 inch of bead

the blue line is how wide it should be.i hammered the hell outa the area on the other side of the blue line to flatten it out so the beads matched

the bottom piece was really no fun

what i ended up with

 

[Flop]

i really have no idea how it came out this clean but hey im not complaining!!

next im onto the patch panels...joyyyy!!

 

[Flop]

wheel well time. customer decided to put the patch panels we had in for the wheel wells

trim trim trim

mess mess mess

subframe cracked and thin

cut it out!

patch

look mom no clamps!!! got a nice tight fit

welded up

didnt get a pic of the bottom trimmed down

doneeee

onto the wheel well next

 

[Flop]

wheel well patch sittin in place

some primer on the subframe and some weld-through primer on the lower part of the patch because i dont know if the patch gets spot welded to the subframe once ya wrap it around or not.

tacked in .

i usually dont work with that many tacks but for this one it seemed impossible not to. there were alot of variations in where the patch panel wanted to sit and where the og wheel well was so a ton of tacks it was

finished up!

for future reference it took a little more then 18 feet of tig rod to weld in the patch haha

another view

 

[Flop]

Next side

more subframe rusty-ness

new piece of subframe with some shrinker stretcher action to mimic the stock piece

sitting in place

finished up the sub-frame welded up and primed. it was a fun piece to make with the curve in it

this quarter was pretty tweaked. Hard to see if the pic it took a good hit at one point

file hammer repeat to infinity

came out pretty nice the body line still need work

the quality of the panels hahahah

and we are tacked in

 

[Flop]

decklid

someone had a dance on this thing!!

most of this was stud gun work mostly all the dents were behind braces. and some shrinking hammer here and there

about half way through

its not 100 percent metal finished but its pretty damn nice in my book

 

[Flop]

got the patch panels from macs in the mail today. JUNK! same as the other ones just on a better piece of metal.


so it needed more subframe work nothing fancy or pretty here

heres the og piece of body line i have to re weld in after fixing the subframe.gonna keep as much of this around as possible because aparently it is impossible to remake .

im making my own panels now. so far i have a much nice start then what i got as a patch panel. i used a piece of 20 guage for the first run just to see what i could make it do and i like the results. switich to 18 gauge for the final product.

i used my commie bead roller some conduit and bruce springsteen on the ipod. wish i woulda started working on these in the begining of the day instead of messing with the patch panels.

i made this up in about 20 mins and quite happy once i get the hard line from the step die out i think ill be good to go

you can see i started to get the hard line out on the edge. pretty excited about this!!

 

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

Nice work and nice narrative (--albeit a little crude with some of the unnecessary foul language!!!). Thanks for sharing.


You are correct that in most instances the commercially available patch panels are indeed junk. While I did not see it mentioned, I am sure you also found those inner fender patches did not have the correct shape stamped into them, nor is the beads like the originals. Truly sad for all the effort that goes into this area. I'm sure that you will probably fabricate those next time too just so you can make them look closer to original. I guess that is why they say "experience is something you get after you need it!" Next time your experience will let you be able to tell the customer that he will need to let you make them yourselves!!

On a side note if you don't mind me asking, did you do this project on a 'Time & Materials' cost to him, ...or did you quote a turn-key price for the whole project beforehand, --and if so, would you do it for the same price again now that you know what all was involved??

Again, nice job & thanks for sharing. (...and BTW, I could not get your website to open.)

.

 

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

Update; kept trying and it finally opened so there must have been some cyberland issues due to 'cold weather'!

.

 

[Ray64]

Hats off to you on the work.Just glad im not footing the bill. RAY

 

[Kevin in NJ]

You clearly do nice work, but I have a question.

Why did you do the whole wheel well patch?

There was only a little bit of metal at the bottom that was bad.

From my experience it is fairly quick to make and weld in a a patch at the bottom of the wheel well. When you consider the length of the weld to do the whole arc and the cost of the panels. In the end I think you use less time and materials to make your own patch and weld it in.

I have encouraged several other people to make their own patches. In each case they have been surprised with how easy and quick the job went.

 

[1931 flamingo]

WOW! Thanks for sharing, and looks like excellent work. What color(s) has owner selected/
Paul in CT

 

[Tom Wesenberg]

Not a bad days's work!!!

Really looks great and so nice to see another Model A come back to life as an original.

Man, am I glad my 3 Model A's don't need patch panels!

Just curious, about how many hours to do this much work?

 

[Randy in ca]

Keep the updates coming. I think this is the first build thread I've ever seen on this forum, whereas on the HAMB there are litterly hundreds of them. Keep up the good work and as I said, keep the updates coming!!

 

[loumo]

It is nice to see a young guy like yourself really take hold of this kind of work and do such a great job. Your intense conscientious attitude and great interest makes this happen and you are to be highly commended. BUT, take it kindly from and older guy with three sons much older than you, be more discreet in the language you use. You don't need to impress anybody that way. Your fine work speaks volumes for you in a much more positive way. Keep up the great work and think twice about using those loose words, they will only detract from your acceptance by others and results in people looking upon you as a person of lesser class. You show exceptional talent and deserve to be highly respected for it. Good luck to you from an old body shop guy.

 

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

It is nice to see a young guy like yourself really take hold of this kind of work and do such a great job. Your intense conscientious attitude and great interest makes this happen and you are to be highly commended. BUT, take it kindly from and older guy with three sons much older than you, be more discreet in the language you use. You don't need to impress anybody that way. Your fine work speaks volumes for you in a much more positive way. Keep up the great work and think twice about using those loose words, they will only detract from your acceptance by others and results in people looking upon you as a person of lesser class. You show exceptional talent and deserve to be highly respected for it. Good luck to you from an old body shop guy.

Well said Loumo.

 

[loumo]

Thanks Brent. We need to encourage this kind of talent and interest which truly comes from the love of this kind of work. And what I see of your work Brent, you are a fine example of this. Keep it up.

 

[Tinbasher]

Some nice work Brent. Looks like the Coupe had all of the regular weak areas. The Tig does a nice job. I've got to learn to Tig. Only a Oxy-acetylene and Mig guy. Nice to see some metal finishing as well. Keep up the good work.

Here`s some picture of a 30 I`m working on that someone had brazed in sections of the Upper Quarter panel sections.

The Old Tinbasher. John Poole