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Using lead for body damage (Pictures Included)

2K views 2 replies 3 participants last post by  OneMoreTime 
#1 ·
I have gone through pages 1 through 50 reading every single post that interested me and now I have something that I havent seen or maybe passed up during my readings... leading. I know this is an "old school" hot rod tradition/method but had some questions on if I could use leading in my application.



My 87 is being complete torn down and rebuilt and here is an issue I knew I would run into and hate. This bed was wrecked. We bought it in 89 and it looked like it had brand new paint... well it had brand new acryllic enamel from what I can tell. Also about 3 years ago we started noticing the cracking... thats all bondo... no fiberglass or kitty hair which would be a better reinforced material, but bondo. I must say that for 15 year old bondo it did a damn good job. Well now that its majoritly ground out I need to think of ways to fix the damage. There are three ways...

try to pull out the damage and get it straight and use a stronger filler like fiberglass reinforced bondo etc...

replace the entire panel or that chunk of the panel with another bed corner and tac weld it in place

use bondo completely again and have it crack in another 10 years.

My parents used to run a stained glass company so we have spools of lead and soldering irons etc and I was wondering... can I grind it down to pure metal and use lead to fill parts of the dented in metal and then grind it/clean it up and use a filler for the last stages?

Thanks guys... as this does seem like a logical method of using something stronger then pure filler and easiest/cheapest.
 
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#3 ·
Archives and such

If you would get into the archives and knowledge base find the old posts from Randy Ferguson and go to www.metalmeet.com you will find a whole bunch of stuff on metal finishing..

From what I can see in the picture that can be pulled out and finished to the point that you would only need a small amount of fill to make it right..learning the lead is good as well since you have it on hand..

Requires tuning up your skills with the shrinking wheel..slap hammers and dollies..makes for a much better job..And once you have it figured out the tools needed will be around for a long time..
 
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