Today we want to talk to you about one of the most critical things you can do during restoration; body panel gaps. What you want to do is assure that you have even gaps going around your hood deck lid doors most importantly you want to make sure that during reassembly you’re not chipping fresh paint.
Tag: autobody
How to Make Door Jambs From Scratch- Eastwood Elite Shrinker Stretcher
In this tech article we’re working on a Model T roadster project that started out as a pile of parts. With any type of project like this you’re going to run into areas where there’s just no metal at all and we need to make it from scratch so we’re going to be making a door sill and door jamb area on this vehicle.
Best ways to seal metal for Paint
A good paint job starts with a good base. This means that you need to make sure you’re sealing up the bare metal and or the work you’ve done at the base. There’s a handful of options we offer, but we decided to break down the best ones for sealing up metal before paint. Read our list below.
Best Auto Body Dent Puller
Repairing dents in a vehicle can be a difficult process if you don’t have the correct tools for a job. Understanding where and when to use each tool is also important. We decided to make a list of the best dent pullers for auto body. Feel free to add a comment below of your favorite tools for removing dents!
What Size Air Compressor is Needed to Paint a Car
With paint guns, supplies, and how-to videos becoming readily available more DIY enthusiasts are taking to painting a car at home. The proper equipment is needed when painting and something as simple as a slightly undersized compressor can translate to a poor paint job and can be quite frustrating. We’ve […]
Tricks to getting dry Compressed Air
The invention of compressed air running tools to make jobs easier is amazing and can make our lives much easier when working in our home shop. Unfortunately some tasks to require clean, dry air to allow the tool to work as it should. For instance your media blaster HATES moisture in the air and will clog the blaster nozzle up quickly if your air isn’t very dry. While your paint gun doesn’t care if it’s spraying 100% water or paint; your paint DOES car and you will have issues with a paint job if your air isn’t dry. Not to mention the lifespan of your air tools can be greatly reduced if you don’t have dry air running through them! We put together a few products that can be life-savers if you can’t afford an expensive filtration system at the compressor (the CORRECT, long term way to solve air moisture issues).
How to Tighten up a Weld Seam on a Patch Panel.
No one’s perfect, but we can do our best to strive to get the closest we can get to perfection every day. These ideals are the same whether you’re a cook, a machinist, a landscaper, or a guy in his garage building an old car or motorcycle. One big lesson I’ve learned over the past few years has been to slow down and take the time to make sure that parts fit together as nice as possible before welding. Just blindly rough cutting a piece and trying to make it fit another piece is going to end with an uneven weld seam and won’t end well!
Where and when do I use Epoxy Primer on my project?
In the past self etching primer was the go-to coating to apply over bare metal on a car. Metal required little prep work to apply it, it flashes/drys quickly, and it came in 1K Aerosol cans for small jobs. In the past 5-10 years you’ve probably been hearing more people talk about Epoxy Primers and their use as opposed to self etching primer. We decided to give you some insight on where and when epoxy primer works best.
Quick Tip- Setting Panel Gaps
Panel Gaps can make or break your impression of a car at a show. No matter how beautiful the paint is, if the panels don’t have a good fit and finish the overall appearance of the vehicle will be hurt. There are a couple quick ways we’ve found to accurately measure and set up your panel gaps. Below are our two favorites that are virtually free!