[swvalcon]

Remember years ago I made a bid on a buick 1/4 panel for a guy. Just a normal side scrape. He comes back a couple days later and say's I need a new price I fixed half of it. Well he had beat the crap out of it with a bfh and made five times the work it was to start with. You should of seen how pisssed he was when I told what he had done and told him now the price was double what I had given him to start with.

[deadbodyman]

Originally Posted by tech69

tell him next time his only job is to put in the rubber stops for you. I think that's right up his alley. man, I feel sorry for those type of guys. They're just doing what any of us would try in saving money. Just got a little too balsy for his own good.

Your right,They just dont know,they think its brand new so its perfect...so insted of argueing with them you have to school them and most learn best when it hits their wallet...
After market fenders and panels NEVER fit well ,they ALWAYS have to be persuaided to fit...
.Newer cars are a different story they have a pretty acceptable fit right out of the box,not perfect by any streach just acceptable.
any way you look at it if you want something that'll last you'll have to strip off that black primer and put your own on because that stuff is crap and its so thin its all but useless...
Heres a shot of one of the best hoods I ever got from goodmark ...after grinding and sanding all the sharp edges(top & bottom) some delicate hammering and dollyingall it took was two coats of EZ sand putty to fill the waves...only took about 8 hrs to get in the booth....
HEY, a 69 camaro hood ,what do ya know....

[deadbodyman]

Originally Posted by swvalcon

Remember years ago I made a bid on a buick 1/4 panel for a guy. Just a normal side scrape. He comes back a couple days later and say's I need a new price I fixed half of it. Well he had beat the crap out of it with a bfh and made five times the work it was to start with. You should of seen how pisssed he was when I told what he had done and told him now the price was double what I had given him to start with.

Man I run into that all the time.the last one my friend used his sissor jack to push his 1/4 out because he saw me doing it a few times and it looked EZ...
OMG,he pushed it out o far you could actually see the shape of the jack head in the metal... to say he streached the metal would be being nice,I had him look down the side so he could see the 6" buldge sticking out and until then he thought it was great...I couldn't resist telling him to be careful walking passed it if he hit it with his knee it would be like walking into a trailer hitch....ouch......
I fixed it up but made him promise not to do bodywork ever again. if he wasnt a good friend and already brought me his last five cars to paint I would have sent him down the road for sure...

[deadbodyman]

Since I've never used a shrinker (shringer) disc I have a dumb question...Can they be used on paint or do you have to get the paint off first before using one.

[timothale]

I've stripped the paint first. My first Model T roadster still had the 1916 Ford paint on it, when I started sanding it off years ago with a 1/4 in drill with a sanding disc, the paint just melted and started flowing like I was melting plastic. I worked on the hood of the old 1951 tractor but the paint was 95 % gone, and it still takes a long time to work it out but I was using a 5 in disc made from a SS plumbing clean out cover I bought at lowe's . Metalmeet forums show how to build one for a 7-9 in grinder. sometime I'll try for a big one.

[oldBodyman]

"...Can they be used on paint or do you have to get the paint off first before using one."

You need to take it to bare metal AND some area larger than you are fixing. the paint will melt, make a mess and act like grease to stop the disc from working. They work great, you will ask yourself why you waited so long to get one.

[deadbodyman]

It must get pretty hot them...Ya?

[123pugsy]

Originally Posted by deadbodyman

It must get pretty hot them...Ya?

It can. You just want to heat it enough that it steams when you spray it with water or quench with a wet rag.

[deadbodyman]

Ahhh makes sence...Are there any videos out there that you can recommend? I think I need to try one out.

[timothale]

I saw one demo-ed at a car show about 15 years ago. one of the guy's watching said let me try that, He didn't have any sucess. so I walked on by, and didn't get interested until a couple years ago reading on Metalmeet forums on how to build one. It takes some technique. it works similar to using a torch to heat up a spot, hammer it down on dolly then cool with a wet rag to shrink it down.. The spinning disc against the body creates heat and the high spot expands up, you apply pressure to push it down , similat to using a hammer then lift and let the air swirling from the disc cool that spot to shrink it. and use a wet rag to take out the residual heat that spreads from the hot spot. It takes some technique to know how long to hold in one spot to create the heat, how hard to apply pressure and then to spin cool it.

[MARTINSR]

I like to refer to the disc as a "Heat block" it heats only the high spots and you cool them to shrink them. Like I said I am no pro but when I was using on every day when I first got mine I was blown away at what could be done with it. Wish I had photos, one Toyota quarter panel I did was absolutely amazing. The metal was folded over it's self at the rear by a glancing blow with something very solid. The damage was about 18" long with this corner being folded over with about an 1/8" radius fold hanging off the quarter under the tail light. I got it all back into shape with only a few coats of primer, it was WILD.

I got mine from Ken at Sun Chaser tools and bought his 5000 RPM grinder and was never sorry. I would use it for collision work on big bondo jobs like the bed side of a truck or something just to get it tight for bondo. It worked great for that, I could of repaired it with no bondo but being there just ins't time, I would use the disc to tighten up the oil caning panel for filler.

Here is a review I did on a DVD I got from John Kelly, it doesn't appear he is in business anymore but the into on the disc still stands. Ghia Specialties metal working video review.



Brian

[tech69]

they are very good for bedsides cause it's a big open panel. If you use something not as good as a shrinking disk you run the risk of overheatting it in a small localized area which then borrows the metal from somewhere else and you'll create a loose area adjacent to it. Obviously, using a stud gun you can easily get away with it by doing lots of light shrinks but still not as accurate at distributing heat like a shrinking disk, just faster.