Working the body of the Demon

[demon340v]

Well i cant seem to find the before pics i took about 2 weeks ago on the demon, but my main project right now is my driver side fender.

here is the before 


And after about 2hrs of work, i still need 2 shape the body line by the door a tad better but heat kicks ur ass when doing body work




After i get this fender 100% i will tackle the passenger side and then back to the hood and hood scoop!

[azz7772]

when you are doing the body line run some tape along the line work up to it until its nice then put the tape on the finished side and work up to the tape again and you will have a nice straight line

[demon340v]

oh ok i gotcha, make the tape work for me, instead of eyeing it.

thanks

[bodyperson]

you need to get the metal out tothe original shape first ( or close to it) Beat the high spots down coax the low spots up. Then use filler, Charlie

[demon340v]

you need to get the metal out tothe original shape first ( or close to it) Beat the high spots down coax the low spots up. Then use filler, Charlie

yeah i hate bondo witha  passion, so what i try and accomplish is get the metal as stright as i can with putting it into submisson

any other tips?

[bodyperson]

sure.lots of tips. I don't know how much experience you have with plastic body fillers but one mistake I see quite often is people useing too fine of a grit with there sand paper. cut your filler with at least #80  if you think your going to apply more than one coat then knock it down with #36. cheese  graters are great (no pun intended). Surform file is the proper name.I like a half round file myself keep it clean with a wire brush. Also, use sharp paper. The sharper the paper the straighter it cuts. use a cross hatch pattern.use a block that fits your contour. I like wooden paint sticks for sharp details. bring the grit up to 120 -150 for the final cut especially around sharp features. use welding rod or a coat hanger bent in a tight oval and taped at the ends to create a tool for beating the cut filler out of your sanding blocks. 10 inches long or more. Mixing filler proper amount of hardner fiber glass resin additive pin holes yada yada yada, getting tired want more? let me know, see ya tomarrow. Charlie

[demon340v]

Oh bring on the more information!  

What i do is i apply the filler let it set and i take a 60grit to the filler to  cut @ it, then after that i do step it up to a 120 grit to  get all the sand marks out of the filler from the 60 that i just took to it.

So far so good? I just need to  work it better and with time comes mroe practice and wit hthat insures a stright  body. done by myself, i really want 2 get the body as best as i can and then have a body shop do a once over on my own work that way it ensures i'm good to go for paint.

[sweatybetty]

http://www.autobody101.com/forums/

try this forum. ive found ALOT of good info here

[bodyperson]

Don't let the filler dry so long that its hard as a rock. Wait till its just past the cheesy stage then start cutting it. It will clog up your paper a little, but thats where the slapping stick comes in. Take it easy at first to see what stage the drying is in. If you get on it too soon it will peel the filler of of the metal. You are applying over fresh ground steel, right? If you see it peeling, wait a little bit. For the best adheasion of the plastic filler use a cross hatch pattern with the grider before the application. Don't run your greasy hand over the metal either! Do not feather the filler into any other substrate other than the metal. This is where you get sand scratches. This is where the terminology feather and fill come into play. It goes like this. Plastic filler feathered into the bare steel (or whatever substrate you have). Then the primer/surfacer fills into the old sealer and paint. (Scenerio) Maybe you did not put enough hardner into the plastic. Feels gummy and you think it will never dry. Wipe it down lightly with laquer thinner and let it dry for a few minutes. Too much hardner creates pinholes and britttleness. Plastic filler (Bondo) got a bad rap years ago because people used it and abused it. If used properly you will never have a problem (until it gets wrecked again) I have been trained an experienced in the collision repair industry for 25 years and have never had a failure due to plastic fillers. They all work if used correctly. Some are easier to work with than others. The price usually reflects there usefullness. Rage is expensive and is very nice to work with. You get the picture.If You need to add another coat of filler, make sure you have the whole area sanded down to the point where your next coat of filler will not be sanded into the previous coat. Cover the whole area again. This will elimitate the effect of two different hardnesses of layers.It is Impossible to cut two different layers of hardnesses straight.When you buy your new gallon of filler let it sit UPSIDE DOWN over night. This lets the resins float through the the filler and float to the top reducing the proccedure of stiring. It also needs to be room tempurature. When mixing the filler with the hardner fold it in don't stir it. Stirring creates air bubbles (pinholes). When you get to the bootom of the gallon can and the filler gets a little thick you can add a little fiberglass resin to it to thin it out. Too much resin will make the final product to brittle so be careful.Plus it will run on the floor. To much hardner will do the same thing ( too brittle and pin holes) PIN HOLES: Another trick.Never bridge your pin holes. squeez every plastic filler coat in tight. If you feel good about the straightness of your contours and you have pin holes here is a neat  little trick. Use metal glaze or add a little fiberglass resin to your favorite filler making it nice and thin. No brittleness issue here because there will be very little film build. Add the hardner ( o ya,hardner). How much? Ilike to spread my filler out like a pancake then cross the whole thing one time with a ribbon of hardener (don't use red hardener as it can cause bleeding of the filler into the finished paint product. This proccedure is for a 70 degree environment. Adjust accordingly. BACK TO THE PINHOLE TRICK. Spread the pinhole mixture over the pinholes good and tight. Single sided razor blades work good for small areas. Use a plastic speader for larger areas, but spread it good and tight. Let it set until its just about to get hard then run over it with a laquer thinner dampened cloth. smearing it around until its almost smooth. Wait until its good and dry then lightly sand it with # 150. WHEw, that was a mouthfull. Charlie

[AA-slingshot]

yeah really....i got about 1/2 way through...had to go to the bathroom, get another cup of coffee, grabbed a bagel, then finished reading. Good information though...no i need to go get rid of that cup of coffee.

[demon340v]

Glad ur here bodyman!


You are educating me pretty good thus far.


I really dislike to use any type of filler, so what i do first is beat the meatl into submisson, and get it as stright as i can then i will come back around wit the  filler, but i know to get a true stright body filler has to be used tehre's just soemthigns you can't see ...

will post mroe on this later back to work! (boss coming)

[bodyperson]

It's the weekend ,lets have fun with BONDO!!   Save up a bunch of bodo dust.  Put it in a small container. About a  handfull for starters. Put a lighter in your dominant hand. Step outside. If you have a fire suit you might want to use it. Cover up any hair you woulkd like to keep. Extend your arms as far as you can. Raise your bondo arm about eye level and have your lighter ready about waist high as far away from your body as possible. Also make sure you aren't under any trees or any thing else you dont want to burn or turn black.  Like the ceiling in my last employers' shop. HA HA !!  Now stike the lighter and get ready to backup. Slowly start sprinkling the bondo onto the lit lighter. Once the bondo starts to burn sprinkle it faster Then let 'er go and backup. depending on how much bodo use the fireball can be incredible. I suggest testing this in small quantities at first. Maybe a  small handfull. Just put it in your hand and close your fist around it. Let it sprinkle out of your hand onto the lighter. Then work your  way up depending on how big of a pyro you are or how stupid you are. Think of the possibilities. I'm not really stupid but I love fire. I haven't hurt anything yet exept the ceiling in my ex-a$$hole boss's shop. That was on purpose. It's fun to be standing around the camp fire and sprinkle a little. Just warn the people around the fire. Or not. HE HE !! Night time is best but you can see it just fine during the day. I'm saving up a shoe box full for my next stunt. probably with a small fire on the ground and a step ladder. BE SAFE. BE SMART. HAVE FUN.  Charlie

[azz7772]

if someone did that in my shop they would have more than burnt hair 

[bodyperson]

ya the old boss wasn't very impressed and I did pay restitution. I was young and dumb when I did that. But he finally paid what he owed me also.

[bodyperson]

acetylene bomb.  I have a couple sad stories about these. The first one is short and not so sad. I did a repair on a corolla? 4th of july. A couple of kids made an oxy acetylene bomb using a punching bag balloon. You  know the kind with the string that you grab and then repeatedly punch the bag. They left it inside the car during the heat of the day. The bomb never ignited, but the balloon expanded so much that it buckled the doors and broke all of the glass out it. amazing true story. The second story involves physical injury. long story. I might tell it later. charlie

[kevin440]

tear it up bud

[83imp]

you need to get the metal out tothe original shape first ( or close to it) Beat the high spots down coax the low spots up. Then use filler, Charlie

yeah i hate bondo witha  passion, so what i try and accomplish is get the metal as stright as i can with putting it into submisson

any other tips?

I remember looking at a 69 Chevelle SS at a guys house that was for sale.  I didn't have the money, but I stopped just to look at it just because I was curious what he was asking for it and I like musclecars of all makes.  It looked great as I was looking at it from the road and was really nice up close until I got to the rear of the car.  They had installed half-quarters on the rear and this guy also hated filler.  What I thought was a really nice car was quickly reduced to a "WTF"-level car in my mind.  They had welded the quarters up, ground the welds down, prepped it and painted it.  There was no filler used and it looked like hell because you could see the seam in the quarter all the way down.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing as this car had a great interior and the body was impecable (sp?) back to the quarters. 

Hopefully, you don't hate filler this much.

[Charles]

acetylene bomb.  I have a couple sad stories about these. amazing true story. The second story involves physical injury. long story. I might tell it later. charlie

Does it go something like this?

(1993, Ontario, Canada) After I borrowed a welding torch and used it cut up an old water tank on my family's property, I found myself with leftover partial bottles of oxygen and acetylene. It seemed wrong to waste all that gas, particularly since I had heard about fuel-oxygen explosives, and had always wanted to test the concept.

I extinguished the torch by setting it to the "leanest" possible burn, and snuffing it by smacking the tip against a flat surface. I then filled a large plastic garbage bag (13 gallons) with oxygen and acetylene from the torch, and inserted a 6" visco cannon fuse.

I placed the homemade explosive on a big rock by the river. I remember lighting the fuse, and I remember backing away as it began to burn. The next thing I knew, I returned to consciousness in the river!

Both of my eardrums were broken, and I was bleeding from both ears and my nose. My beard and exposed hair were singed and curly, but oddly, there were no burns on my skin. I later discovered a perfect image of the folds, seams and buttons of the cotton shirt I was wearing, imprinted as bruises on my chest and arms. It took months for my eardrums to heal, and I still can't hear high frequencies well.

What happened? Perhaps a spark from the fuse touched the bag. Perhaps the bag had a small leak. Whatever the cause, I'm lucky to be alive. At the emergency room, the workers said, "When we get a welder here, he usually dies."

[bodyperson]

Yes Charles my story goes alot like that. But first I'll have to appologize to demon340v for high-jacking his thread about body filler. This didn't happen to me but to freind of mine, Jerry. We were filling up the bombs in another freinds garage. His name is Mark. 33 gallon garbage bags,getting ready for a big independance day celebration at Mark's house . We planned on filling up around thirty of them.  Being bodymen,we us masking tape for the fuse. Works great. Just stick it to the bag light it and give it a shove into  the air. Well  this day was a little different. Jerry was filling the bombs per Marks directions. Fill one bag,tie it, set it to the side then start on your next one. Mark and I had some buisness in town and left ol' jerry at marks house by himself filliing the bombs. Upon our return to marks house (it's dark now) we noticed that there were no lights on whatsoever. To make a long story short, Jerry was not there either. He was in the hospital by then. A neighbor, Marks'sister-in-law had heard the explosion and came to jerrys' rescue. Same thing as you Charles busted ear drums.burnt body. External bleeding. His skin had a strange green glow from the green colored garbage bags. The explosion (we figured about 10 bags) blew all the windows outof the house. All the lights and blew three 4x8 sheets of plywood off of the garage roof. Ol' Jerry lived but never hase been the same as he was. I think it gave him brain damage. We figure that Jerrry was filling one bag and reached for another and gave the bag a snap to open it up causing a static spark. Mark still makes the big bombs. I keep mine down to the size of a snuff can. Charlie

[Charles]

I wasn't the victim in that story, fortunately... I remembered seeing it posted on another bulletin board last year, and I went back and found it. But I'll never mess with fuel-air explosives... while in the USAF I had a class on burn injuries and they said the amount of heat energy in modern fuel-air weapons is comparable to a small nuke! The videos were very impressive - a huge white cloud of hydrocarbon vapor forms, then the ignitor goes off and the fireball is unbelievable. 

[bodyperson]

A little more info on plastic fillers.  Be clean.  Use the little bit off of the lid first. clean the lid with a rag and a little thinner. Don't let the filler build up on the lip of the can. Keep your area clean. Blow yourself off before mixing up a new batch. Nothing worse than getting a chunk of sanding grit in your final coat of mud. Always seal the can back up when leaving it sit. It dryes out if you don't. The Bondo co. makes a neat little knife desingned to get the last little bit out of a one gallon can . It's also a putty knife but be carefull as they break easily at the handle. Don't be afraid to mix up too much filler. Too much is better than not enough.

[bodyperson]

I wasn't done. I accidently hit the post botton anyway don't be afraid of plastic filler. It is the only way you are going to make the car straight. If used correctly (freshly ground steel with no holes) this stuff will last longer than the paint. You don't want to put it over holes or cracks. If you do the moisture will get to it. I've repaired cars that had been previously repaired with filler that was an inch thick and it held up just fine. Not that I would put it in that thick but it is a testimony of how well this stuff can work. Just make sure the metal is ground fresh and well. Use a carbide bit or a droken drill bit an awl or something to get that last little bit out of those  deep creases or weld beads. Charlie

[demon340v]

Thanks for helping out, i have not touched the body of the demon since the 1st post, i have been working alot lately and i'm eager to get back to the body and finish off that front end more!