Hot Rods Metal Gurus... I need help

I have some decent '32 front fenders that have a number of little bumps and low spots. I could try to dolly the spots but what about using an English wheel to smooth everything out. Planishing hammer?

 

Look on YouTube for videos by Lazze metal shaping. Lots of info there.

Sent from my SM-G920W8 using H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

You could try a plannishing hammer but start with little fender contact on first pass and gradually decrease your dolly space working in a circular motion around the dents edge to gradually work your way to the center. Do not go directly across the center of the dents.
Vic

 

My experience with the English Wheel had been limited so I'm no pro but unless you are well versed with the English wheel I would suggest sticking to the hammer & dolly. HRP

 

^ and unless you have a hand held planishing hammer , big parts are hard to handle. Maybe a shrinking disc. I haven't tried a real one but have used backward facing sanding disc for that.

 

Personally, I would E-wheel it and finish with slapper & dolly, that would do it licketysplit. A planishing hammer will do it as well or quicker but it'd have to be a very good one to get deep into a fender, those machines aren't common even though you'll see plenty of them being advertised. Even a harbor freight E-wheel that has been 'improved' would work really good on that fender.
Practice on something other than a original set of '32 fenders first.

 

1932 metal is pretty hefty, so I would use hammer and dolly to quickly bring up the lows, and knock down the highs. THEN use either the wheel or planishing hammer and dolly to finish up. I mostly use the wheel for smoothing metal after the rough work, or to form subtle curves in the metal. It's not the most effective as a quick former, or repair tool.

 

In my estimation using a wheel or planishing hammer for your job is overkill. I would use a BULLS EYE to pick up the lows and a hammer/dolly to bring down the highs quickly. Use a file to check progress. No grinding.
If shrinking is needed I would use a stud gun for heat and compressed air for cooling.

 

All interesting replies. I don't think the bullseye/ pick hammer is applicable in this case. The slap/planishing hammer might do the job. An English Wheel is what I'll try if the slap hammer doesn't do the trick. The bumps are not sever just numerous so that is why my initial thought on the wheel came to mind. The fenders have a comps bound curve to them so low crown anvil would/should work.

 

E-wheels are fantastic at getting rid of 'walnuts'

 

I use my wheel often for getting rid of lots of tiny spots, makes light work of it,,,,,, well comparatively.

 

depending on what they look like I would use a shrinking disc and hammer and dolly.... but what do I know, I have never used an english wheel...

 

Warts and dimples. To use a English wheel or a planishing hammer is like using a sledge hammer to drive tacks. It doesn't take power to remove minor imperfections it takes finesse. Hold your dolly firmly and your hammer lightly and let the hammer work for you a simple flip of the wrist is all it takes. its work but some things deserve work.

 

You haven't experienced life until you pinch your finger tip and then have to decide "should I take the glove off and look" as the leather turns maroon and soggy :/

 

Look at the mess the pros make of a flat piece of sheet metal, trying to rough it into something like a desired compound form. Then run that mess through an English wheel a few times and see how wonderful it becomes. If you have a wheel, use it. It is like beer, God's gave us beer as his promise that he loves us and wants us to be happy. Same with English wheels, except that in England, they just call it a wheel.

 

I'll go on a limb here,
If you need to ask if the E wheel will do the job There's a very good chance that the damage gets worse and ridges appear and a real mess beyond dimples develops. A 32 fender isn't easy to roll thru the wheels. It's very easy to change the shape and curve of the fenders before the lumps, dents and dimples are gone.

Slapper, dolly and a shrinking disc.

 

Jeez Vicky! Thats not what you are supposed to do!! You are supposed to read the thread, and then just parrot whatever the majority is saying!! Dont you know nothin??

 

Maybe someone can clarify this for me...I am not an expert metal shaper by any means, and have never used an english wheel, but isnt the purpose of an english wheel to form compound curves in flat sheets?? Have I got this right, or am I mistaken??
Now like I say, I am no expert, hell I even READ BOOKS!! But if you are pushing a sheet of flat metal between two wheels, and it is forming a compound curve in it, would that not tend to indicate that it was stretching the metal?? Am I missing something here?
I mean, I have formed a shallow compound curve in a flat sheet by following Daves method of hammering a flat sheet in a grid pattern between a low crown hammer and a piece of steel, now I could be totally out to lunch here, but logic (sorry, I know thats kind of a dirty word) would seem to indicate that I am stretching it?
So, bottom line here is, I am still trying to wrap my head around just how stretching fortunate sons
'32 fender is going to get rid of the walnuts, arent they already stretched?
Or am I reading too many books again??

 

^^^^ I agree with this ^^^^
An English wheel would have to be used with very little pressure on the rollers, and the face radius of the roller would have to very closely match the curve of the fender.

 

Yes, pressure on the wheels will "thin" and spread the metal making it bigger. You could easily call that stretching but it's a bit different. A bigger area surrounded by a smaller area will make it dome.

With little pressure the wheels will tend to smooth ripples or dimples to some extent. Higher pressure is needed to get the dimples out and that higher pressure also starts thinning the metal. The dimples are already stretched and the wheel will thin the entire area.

 

Ok, thats EXACTLY what I was picturing would happen. So instead of shrinking the high spots and getting the fender back to its original shape, you are "evening out the bumps|(stretched spots)" by stretching, thinning and effectively distorting the entire crown of the fender. So basically, sticking with the vegetarian theme, you would be taking all the walnuts, and combining them into a watermelon?
I sent him a pm suggesting using a slap file essentially "off-dolly", working from the low side of the dent you are trying to shrink, holding a dolly on the high spot, and working around the dent with light taps with a slap file in a spiral ending at the center, while pushing the high spot of the dent upwards towards the slap file with the dolly. You can visually monitor the low spot coming up towards you as it comes up, because the marks from the slap file will cover more and more of the area of the dent as it is raised up towards you. Go slow and dont rush into the center of the dent, let the slap file draw it up progressively. For a relative beginner like me, using the raising action of the slap file seems more progressive and "controllable" than using a shrinking disc or heat??
Am I on the right track here? This is the way I have been doing it lately, and I find it much more controllable.

 

Hammering off dolly displaces the surface's elevation from one place to the other. Sort of like moving bubbles around in wallpaper or ironing a shirt. You can take an innie dent and reverse it to an outie, in some cases you can chase the thinned metal back into itself and force it to get thicker by hammering off dolly.

Hammering on dolly will raise the area you are hammering. As counter intuitive as it sounds the area moves away from the dolly and towards the hammer. It certainly does stretch the metal. But you can get the area smooth centimeter to centimeter even though it's a high spot in the panel. The shrinking disk really really shines here because it lowers the high spot while keeping the panel smooth.

The shrinking disc can really up your game for sure. With it you can take down the crown of a whole door to elimate panel dive, lower a knot the size of a spoon, or reverse over hammering. Removing dents and metal finishing can so easily result in over hammering, the disc reverses that so there's no need for fear in hammering too much.

 

So is this essentially what I am doing by spiralling into the center of the low spot as it comes up? As I understand it, the serrations in the face of the slap file also work to shrink the metal? I am usually ending up slapping on dolly at the end, but very briefly.

 

would using the slap file be faster if I worked on dolly from the start? In other words, instead of working off dolly with the dolly pushing up on the high spot and the slap file at the perimeter of the stretched area spiralling in towards the dolly, start hammering on dolly out at the perimeter of the stretched area, and work my way in a spiral to the center of the dent with the dolly behind where I am hammering?
This seems counter-intuitive, but?

 

Wow, some good bed time reading. I forgot about the shrinking disc option. I have one so maybe I'll try that route. All these options on trash fenders first. The main point it that there are so many I get confused to what is up and too up versus what is down and too down trying to find the original shape. This will be a summer holiday exercise so plenty of time opractise first. I don't want to do what the last guy did a smooth everything over with 1/8-1/4" o filler.

 

I don't use a slap file much, I use a smooth slapper. So the action is a bit different.
A file can grab onto and pull the metal where you tell it to go, it also leaves marks. If you've got the file telling the metal go and crowd other metal the theoretical result is shrinking, that's going to happen off dolly. Slapping on dolly will both thin the metal making it it bigger like pizza dough and also raise the area you're slapping.

Here's what John kelly had to say on another forum.

 

Kent White calls an E-Wheel a 'round hammer', if you have walnuts you'll have to flatten them entirely before the E wheel can get to the base metal and change the shape. You control the tension, it'll have to be very light to push the fender thru it and start to flatten the bumps, as the bumps flatten you increase pressure. Once you get rid of the bumps you quit. If you continue to add tension once the bumps are gone then you are changing the shape of the fender. If you are dumb enough to do that you can start a different thread.

 

The Ewheel won't know the difference either, it will just even them out moving all the metal to an equal level. It will push the high of the nut down and the valley between the nuts up.

Fenders usually have a bunch of outie dents from being pelted with gravel and innie dents from things falling on them.

Your biggest hurdle will be seeing what's high and what's low to the original metal.
Get the fenders perfectly clean or as close as possible both in and out.
Hit them with a thin coat of primer.
Lightly start to block sand them, just a few even swipes evenly over the entire fender.
The first places the primer sands off are your highest high spots.
Begin there with a plan making them go down. A flexible straight edge will help you greatly in developing that plan.

Count on it being a dance, sand some bump some - sandsome bump some sand some bump some till you like it or can't see. If you can't see another coat of primer won't hurt you, only help.

 

Ok, thats about what I figured. so it sounds like I am on the right track. I am finding the slap file very user friendly for a relative beginner, for me, the light marks on the surface are a plus, because I can SEE where I am at very clearly. As the low comes up, and I spiral inwards, the file marks show closer and closer to the center of the low, and I can see it coming out. I can place my next series of hits with the slapper overlapping the inner perimeter of the last set of file marks, because if theres file marks I know that area is leveling off. Maybe not the clearest description but best way I can think of to describe it.
I am finishing off with a vixen file. This is all pretty old fashioned I guess, but so is the guy who is teaching me, and so is the stuff I am working on.

 

The best thing is do just like you're doing providing it brings success and having the experienced eye guide the teachable spirit is beyond valuable.