Now the “ruff” work on the body is done – afterwards its seems that it was the easy part - it is time to make everything tight, smooth, and ready for painting. But all that is faster said than done. Mainly it means hammering as much as possible dents out of the body, filling some dents with thin, and using a metal file (more a grater) to straighten the metal. All that to ensure that the use of filler can be limited to the minimum.

But some dents in the bonnet and the rear panel do not differ, the condition of those panels was terrible after about 40 year storage combined with a few house moves. On top of that  the (after war) metal is so thin (0.8 mm.) that you have to be careful when you start sneezing J, the metal was stretched where dents used to be, and it was impossible to get a plain surface just by “cold” hammering.

So I had to use a technique I learned some 40 years ago as helper of an old coachbuilder - real craftsman - or at least what I still could remember of it. Shrinking they call it, and it’s all in that word. I had to shrink the metal by making a little round spot (about the size of a 2€ piece) flaming red with the blowtorch, and then fast round hammering from outside to the inside, then followed by cooling the whole thing with a bit of water and a sponge. To be honest, it took me some time before it would go a little bit like I hoped, but after some training spots on a loose piece of metal it did. I think I spend about 5 hours warming, hammering, cooling and grating. But after that it all looked straight enough to take the next step.

So now I made the surfaces (except the front wings) straight with a good quality filler, sanding them down, filled the little dents again, and sanded them down. And again, and again... At a moment it looked as if the whole body was covered with a thick layer of filler, but that’s only a first impression. I think that even on the worst parts, the filler has no more thickness than 2 millimetre. I used 3 kg. of filler on the whole body, and you can count that 75% comes off again with the sanding. For me that result is more than acceptable.

After that came a coat of spraying filler, to get the last scratches of the ruff sanding out, followed by a few good layers of primer.

The front wings came next. There metal is much thicker, so I had them sandblasted by someone that knows how to handle such parts. A lot of filler and old paint came off, but basically they where surprising good. I just had to weld in a little piece of metal where they fix on the front support, because that part is double, and so rust can go its way there. And on the rear where they are bolt on the rear wings, that also needed a little bit off new metal.

But making them straight was another story, it took a lot of time, simply because they are so long and in the past on several spots repaired with a lot of filler.

Getting a nice smooth surface was not so easy. Hammering the dents out was one thing, getting the wings straight after the filler another. Especially because I first tried to do it with the sanding machine, but I could not receive the result I wanted.

To cover a much greater part of the wing in one time, I made a simple sanding block (60 cm) from a piece of wood, and nailed the sanding paper on the head ends. So now I could cover much longer strokes, almost the whole wing, in one long smooth move. That worked well, so again filler – sanding – filler – sanding and so on. Than after much elbow grease, spraying filler came on, sanding again... and then followed by a few layers off primer.

From the start of this adventure I decided that the body would come in a warm maroon, and the wings in distinguished black. So now it was time to paint the body, so I could finally go further with the more visual part of the rebuild. For that purpose I hired the spray cabin of a small garage here in the village, to do the paintjob myself. Geert – the young owner – don’t mind to let me work in it, because I used to work in several paint shops when I was a lot younger. One of them was in fact in that same garage, but then owned by his father, who is after 40 years still a friend. So over the years I always managed to maintain a part of that skill, as a helping hand here and there.

I used two pack paint off course, but not the version with a varnish end coat , because that finish would be to modern. But on the other hand, to make the end coat stronger, I always use a bit of pure two pack varnish in my final coat of paint. The result is always stunning...

25-04-2014, 00:00 Geschreven door Jeff OdH