1966 Valiant for the Other Daughter....

Do you watch Wray Schelin's youtube channel? Lots of good info on there for metal shaping.
I decide to start tinkering on my truck again and have been playing his video's in the back ground while I work.

I try not to send new guys to Wrays channel, as although he does have some useful info, he also does some things absolutely wrong. Someone green may not pick up on those things and thus also learns the wrong way to do things.


Some examples:

A fabricated motorcycle fender should have the ducktail at the bottom added before the crease was put in down through the center. Any crease or fold acts as a lock, and makes it near impossible to add any additional shape afterwards. Thus the extra shape needed on the sides to add the lower tail could not be put in effectively; the center crease should have been the absolute last thing put in and was not. So he painfully struggles through it and never once mentioned that the order should have been changed.

Welding a patch in the top of a fender right up next to the mounting flange (think hood opening) is going to cause shrinking along/adjacent to that flange. As one would expect, the weld area shrunk and formed a low spot at the top of the fender. He attempted to relieve this by hammering things upward. This introduces tension on the flange such that the extra metal now wants to accordion the flange as the metal is looking for somewhere to go. He notices this when the fender is turned over and hammer and dollies the flange flat again. Then his body sweep shows the low again up top, and this process goes back and forth a few times without any light bulb going off in his head......."Houston, we have a problem..." Yes, the weld shrunk the area and until you PLANISH the weld to add STRETCH you will never correctly fix that low.. He never once mentions this actual cause and effect. I would hope at his level he understands that welds shrink.

I always considered Wray a smart cookie but blunders such as these, gone unmentioned, are just teaching others the wrong way to do things and/or not being able to recognize the cause, effect, and proper corrective action. He does a beautiful job on showing metal finishing, but sadly still has a low area where the weld shrunk the panel when he's done. And full disclosure, my work is not perfect, my metal finishing is not up to his standard, and he'll probably forget more than I'll ever know. But I try to learn from my mistakes and will often use those as teaching moments to show others the how and why of what happens when things don't follow the correct process. I try to insure everyone knows cause-effect of weld shrinking/distortion and proper methods to correct. So if anyone needs training videos I normally point them to David Gardiner or Peter Tommasini. Both these gentlemen were trained properly using traditional metalshaping methods and they do a very good job of explaining the basics so you can understand, up to the most difficult.
 
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I try not to send new guys to Wrays channel, as although he does have some useful info, he also does some things absolutely wrong. Someone green may not pick up on those things and thus also learns the wrong way to do things.

So if anyone needs training videos I normally point them to David Gardiner or Peter Tommasini. Both these gentlemen were trained properly using traditional metalshaping methods and they do a very good job of explaining the basics so you can understand, up to the most difficult.
Kent White is another one, he started out many decades ago learning from the greats at Harrah's Museum in Reno. I think he just makes things easy.
 
Kent White is another one, he started out many decades ago learning from the greats at Harrah's Museum in Reno. I think he just makes things easy.

I tried to sign up for his class but he is off restoring an airplane or something and not offering the class anymore.
 
I try not to send new guys to Wrays channel, as although he does have some useful info, he also does some things absolutely wrong. Someone green may not pick up on those things and thus also learns the wrong way to do things.


Some examples:

A fabricated motorcycle fender should have the ducktail at the bottom added before the crease was put in down through the center. Any crease or fold acts as a lock, and makes it near impossible to add any additional shape afterwards. Thus the extra shape needed on the sides to add the lower tail could not be put in effectively; the center crease should have been the absolute last thing put in and was not. So he painfully struggles through it and never once mentioned that the order should have been changed.

Welding a patch in the top of a fender right up next to the mounting flange (think hood opening) is going to cause shrinking along/adjacent to that flange. As one would expect, the weld area shrunk and formed a low spot at the top of the fender. He attempted to relieve this by hammering things upward. This introduces tension on the flange such that the extra metal now wants to accordion the flange as the metal is looking for somewhere to go. He notices this when the fender is turned over and hammer and dollies the flange flat again. Then his body sweep shows the low again up top, and this process goes back and forth a few times without any light bulb going off in his head......."Houston, we have a problem..." Yes, the weld shrunk the area and until you PLANISH the weld to add STRETCH you will never correctly fix that low.. He never once mentions this actual cause and effect. I would hope at his level he understands that welds shrink.

I always considered Wray a smart cookie but blunders such as these, gone unmentioned, are just teaching others the wrong way to do things and/or not being able to recognize the cause, effect, and proper corrective action. He does a beautiful job on showing metal finishing, but sadly still has a low area where the weld shrunk the panel when he's done. And full disclosure, my work is not perfect, my metal finishing is not up to his standard, and he'll probably forget more than I'll ever know. But I try to learn from my mistakes and will often use those as teaching moments to show others the how and why of what happens when things don't follow the correct process. I try to insure everyone knows cause-effect of weld shrinking/distortion and proper methods to correct. So if anyone needs training videos I normally point them to David Gardiner or Peter Tommasini. Both these gentlemen were trained properly using traditional metalshaping methods and they do a very good job of explaining the basics so you can understand, up to the most difficult.
Robert,
When I get to working on my GTX again, I will be re-reading a ton of your posts. :)
 
Tinkered a bit on and off today and evening. Needed to obling the latch on the RH side. Remember this side has had 3 quarter panels on it in 50 years... Filled the holes for mounting the '57 Chevy hood ornament (don't ask) and pulled the dent much better than it was. Also filled the holes for the hood pins. Time to strip the hood and the car is in bare metal! Made the door patch but need to wait till it is outside so I can roll it on its side so I can get a better weld.

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Blasted the hood, welded in the rest of the patches and filled the remaining holes. Worked out some more dents and got it setup so we can do a dry fit and finally assembly mockup. Tomorrow is just working out dents, aligning panels, grinding some welds now I can get to them and crawl in the trunk to get the damn latch open... it is jammed of course...

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Did you blast the underside of the hood?

Yes, the ribbing. The places that were the backside of the skin I stayed way back and hit it at greater than a 45 degree angle. Took a lot longer to get those areas clear. It takes very little to get the under side paint off. I ran a straight edge around and don’t see any additional warping.
 
You’ve made it this far and I know you’re fighting a closing window of favorable spraying weather, but why not fix ALL the rust so the paint will last…. ;)

So I did some exploratory surgery this morning and those dark spots are actually on the surface and because of trapped moisture under the molding in decade gone by! The rust is not bad at all! That is a relief and will save me a day of work!
 
Jim I may have missed it, but do you know that is the end of the rust in the cowl? Its very common to remove the cowl top (200 spot welds) on Mustangs to replace or repair.
Edit: Only 100 or so spot welds on the bottom panel.

A little more blasting and I find one last rust spot I need to fix damn it. That area was filled with dirt of course. This is the first Az car I have worked on that I have seen problems in the cowl area but it follows the other rule of the only place an Az car has rust is where dirt get trapped and can wet for extended periods of time when it does rain
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Is this the rust spot you are talking about? Your daughter will appreciate being able to wash her car when it gets dirty.
 
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