How to customize my headlight bezels. 54 Chevy
 

Guys,
Haven't posted here in a while. I want to do a slight customization to my fenders/headlights. I like the way this guy customized his car:
http://image.customrodder.com/f/9031...ront_right.jpg

These look like 57 Chevy car or truck headlight bezels that have been stripped of their chrome plating. What do you think?
How did this guy do that to his fenders?

The thing that worries me and makes this a little difficult is, that he took that fender line and carried it into the headlight bezel, I think... I can't really tell.

Thoughts? Opinions? Suggestions?

Its custom metal working.
He may have used some of a donor fender and grafted it in.

The chrome is still there I believe.
If not, its stripped off and painted.

Look at my avatar pic.
The whole front of my car has been cut off and new metal formed and welded in place.

If you're handy with cutting and welding, you can learn alot at the metal shaping websites.

I believe they are 55 Chevy bezels.

Those are 55 Chevy Passenger car "brows" taken off 55 Fenders and welded and moulded into the fenders.

That is all it takes, the hard part is coming up with some 55 fenders that are beat all to crap except for the parts you need so they don't cost you an arm and a leg.

Brian

theres a lot more there than just the brows...57 upper grill molding,vette grill and a 55 (i think) bumper. It all looks nice together and done by someone with a lot of experiance...
If you really want to have some fun do what pugsy suggested and take a few metal shaping classes www.metalmeet.com

i agerr.i see parts from several cars on that front end.

Oh yeah, but we were talking about just the lights. Yes it takes a heck of an eye to put something like that together. This is one of the biggest mistakes people make is putting something on a car just because they liked it on another car. This is a VERY good point DBM, thanks for pointing that out! JUST putting the headlamp brows on an otherwise stock car is not going to have the same look as this full custom!

Brian

U guys are most definitely correct about those headlights. Definitely a 55 chevy. I need to do some custome work to the exterior and i was trying to get ideas.

Those 54's are pretty popular for customizing...I saw one that was sectioned and chopped,it looked real good.The transformation was amazing..I wish I knew how to use photoshop like I do cutting & welding.

Do you have photoshop? I can explain how to use the basic features that everyone else uses.

Yeah I bought the dang thing last year when I wanted to get into the art threads but I'm totaly hopeless with it I even got some books and got even more fasinated and more lost .Then I got photoshop for dummy's and gave up. :smash: :smash: I still got everything .somewhere...If I remember corectly I have photoshop 8 but right now I dont feel so smart so I'll stick to hammering ,welding and grinding...


and tearing it all up and redoing it...

Those are 55 headlights and brows,but the bumper is 1956.Looks cool. :thumbup:

I started cutting stuff up back in my twentys (late starter) The best advice I can give you is dont show anyone what your doing until its done.Thay'll say your crazy.your ruining it,and will try to discourage you at every step...dont ever listen to people that have no vision....If you can see something that would cool DO IT chances are everyone will think it looks good too (after its done) Your only limited by your abilitys and THOSE you can learn as you go, its the imagination that seperates run of the mill body men from custom car builders. Sounds to me like you already have the important stuff...GO FOR IT ...if you get into a jamb we'll help you out.. Right, Pugs ???

I'm always in to help out with metalshaping for sure.

55-57 headlight sections are usually rusted out and the sections can be bought and grafted on fairly easily and might be the best place to start other than reshaping something new.
When I decided I wanted to change the look of my 48 (I never liked the way the headlights looked) I wanted the layed back look so after finding the prices of headlight assemblies I went with 66 VW headlights they cost about 50.00 ea. I started with some manilla folder paper and started making what I wanted out of paper after a couple days of trial and error I had something I thought looked right and called my son to see what he thought ,after getting his opinion it was on and I started forming the sheetmetal using the paper as a template and the VW trim ring for the contour...Heres some pics I took of the job .I'm reshaping the front of the hood and grill also.I really like the shape of the willies hood and the 39 lincoln Zepher is where I got the idea for the grill.

its best to have a second set of fenders around before cutting them up.....just in case :sweat: I got about a week into these rusted fenders but I got a second set if it all looks good