quote:Originally posted by PanteraDoug:
I personally have seen very short life cycles on the sheetmetal that has been heated, shrunk and pounded out?
That metal doesn't seem to have great longevity once put back into service?
I noticed the primer that was mentioned and it definitely will be on my list for next time. Sure hope it does the trick?
Working bent sheet metal properly takes patients and a light hand with the hammer. Also if you are shrinking with what I call "big heat" or a torch, that will suck the life right out of the tin. I use a shrink disk which heats the top surface on the sheet metal to pull it back. It's a slow process. Second when you are growing a low area or dent, the metal grows to the hammer so you start dolling around the outside of the low spot and hammer O-SO-LIGHTLY working you way into the center. This takes time and often a re-shrink using the disk. If you follow this method, the metal will be fine and have a long the happy new life cycle until the next crash.
Here is a view of the shell being moved to my paint booth area. It's in Rust Defender polyester primer and is ready to be blocked. I layer the car with 2 colors of material so you can clearly see the surface changes during blocking. Sometimes I use tint to change the layer colors and sometimes I use an actual color change---beige to gray---so on. This was a layer color change. Polyester is much harder to sand than urethane primer but it will not shrink in time and holds the top coat polish from shrinking much better---from what I have seen over many years of painting.
I painted my first full vehicle in high school---1974---it was a van in lacquer with multy-colored custom paint including my first attempt at mural painting---a vision to some---nightmare to others.
