Hi folks.. I've been an old-car hobbyist, particularly focussed on '55-6 Fords and Mercurys, half my life (since I could drive at least) I inheritted the disease from my dad, but of course here on the forums I'm new. It looks like a good active forum that should be a pleasant place to share experience and information.

Anyway, now that I've gotten settled in to the house with the wife, I'm looking to start getting serious about the hobby again. I've got 3 '55 Mercurys and a '56, and all need body work.. One of them ('55 Sun Valley) is going to be a bone stock restoration, one (the '56 4-door) is completely open to any and all possibilities, the other 2 (2-door hardtop and station wagon) are somewhere in between..

The problem is that for all the cars I have, the supply of front end sheet metal is inadequate, even if I patch together what I have I come up short on fenders and doors..

This leads me to considering the plan for making some new glass panels.. I've done fiberglass panels on a school project vehicle, and the knowledge base article follows pretty exactly what I plan on doing.

What my question is comes down to how elaborate I get with these molds.. I could probably take care of myself making a single set of whatever I make, or in the case of fenders (at least) I could probably make enough for everything by the Sun Valley and save myself the headache of having to fix rusted out corners that there are no available repair panels for.

But what I really want to know is if it's worth it if I go through some extra steps to make more permanent/durable molds (like building wooden framework)... I'm wondering on two levels:

1) Would I get 3 sets off of the most basic fiberglass molds? (3 sets being the most I'd expect to need for myself)

2) Does this kind of thing have any sort of market? (I have no illusions about retiring off of fiberglass fender.. erm.. profits, but I would LOVE to be able to be part of putting more of this beautiful car on the road.)

First, a well made mold will give off dozens of parts. Taken car of, it would last virtually forever. As far as potential market, that is hard to determine but if current old car restoration trends mean anything, ther would probably be a strong demand for the parts. Seems like parts for ANY old car are in demand.

Slipangle,
A restoration would not be a true restoration using fiberglass parts. In my opinion, steel is much better anyway, but then I have this terrible strong aversion to fiberglass!!

I say stick with the steel!!

Randy Ferguson
Metalshaping & Kustom Paint
www.metalmeet.com

Yea, but you obviously know what the smell you are doing!!

Well.. For the '56 and the wagon, I'm not worried in the least about the restoration being true.. The '56 already has gone mechanically the route of being heavily modified. (352 with everything Edelbrock induction and Comp Cams cam and valvetrain, and finding headers that fit was no small task )

The plan would be to leave the good steel for where it counts. In order to get 4 sets of good fenders, I'd be resorting to a pair of fenders spliced right down the middle of the fender well.. I had 2 pairs, of which one was completely gone around the headlight and the other completely gone over the bottom 10 inches of the rear. Splicing them together was a fun and interesting exercise.. but I don't know how happy I will be when I put a glossy paint on it, or if I am I probably wouldn't be happy about how much filler I had to use to get there.

And then there's the whole issue of not having a good welder.. I just don't think I could ever settle with a K-mart mig welder. But that's about the limit of what my budget will allow till the wife is happy with the state of the landscaping or I sell off a finished car. I work with my dad alot, of course, but the one thing he lacks is a decent welder. (Yes, part of it is me being picky.. This is the one draw-back of having worked with good equipment, at least for me)

Yes I know I could try to buy good fenders, and if I had the budget for that I'd have the budget for a welder anyway.. '55 Mercury stuff is an order of magnitude harder to find than '55 Ford stuff.

But for the '56, I'd really love to get the weight down too.. Plus I've had thoughts/dreams of making a flip-up front end set of body work (including the massive bumper/grill assembly.


Anyway.. enough rambling, I did have some questions about this kind of thing that go beyond what is in the fiberglass part making article.. Actually, it's kind of a broad question because I don't even know where to start, but that aside.. I was wondering if anyone with experience making fiberglass panels had to say about threaded fasteners..

If I build a hood (for example), there has to be a viable attachment for the hood hinge.. How do you do that/is there a good source for standard threaded inserts that can be sandwiched into the fiberglass and adequately distribute the load? Or is that something you have to fabricate yourself?



That brings to mind a story.. I don't pretend to be a seasoned professional, but I have to say that I almost worked a miracle with the '55 hardtop roof. *ALMOST* This was when I was learning various shrinking/stretching techniques..

When I got this car, it came from a junk yard.. The door showed signs of the car having been pushed around from the side (as evidenced by the huge tire-shaped dent) and the roof was caved in to the seat (but the structure was ok)

So I actually had done a good job of getting EVERYTHING about the roof back into shape and gotten all the creases out except for a dip about the size of the bottom of a coke can. So like a dope, I figured all that I had accomplished, this should be easy to fix and then I'd be done.

Nope.. The smart thing to do would have been fill it and be happy. I forget what I did, but when I did it the rest of the roof just went twang.. The more I did, the worse it got. I eventually got it close enough that the need for filler wasn't that much (thickness-wise), but lets just say the bottom of a coke-can doesn't describe the area that needed filler.

At any rate.. I know enough about sheet metal to be dangerous, and to know that there are some things that I shouldn't do. And if I'm ever in that spot again, I'll just find a Ford roof to splice in.

The way I embed fasteners is to weld or braze nuts on a piece of sheet metal or plate (drilled hole so bolt will pass through) and sandwich the plate on the fiberglass part, positioned correctly, with a couple layers of mat. For small attachments (less than 1/4") use rivet nuts.

Hi Willys36.
I'll take that as a compliment. Thanks!!
Randy