My grandpa Lanning lived next door to a couple of guys that regularly built cars for themselves, and others, in the early 2000s when he was building a hot rod of his own. The neighbors, Jack and Terry, were into completely different kinds of cars, with one being so traditional as to wear period correct garb for road trips in his 19teen Buick. His idea of a hot rod was when he took at ’34 Ford that was absolutely stone stock and put 1940’s correct exhaust and wheels on it. Jack on the other hand was a typical hot rod guy. Ford F100, 1932 Ford, 1940 Ford, etc. His were usually Ford powered, but always what you expected to see at a Goodguys show or something. They were awesome neighbors who always looked out for, and helped, my grandma and grandpa before we all moved to be near them.
When I got out of the high tech world in the early 200os and started my own hot rod shop, I mentioned to Jack that I wanted to learn more about using a hammer and dolly. Jack always did his own body work and paint on his cars and customers cars, so I knew he knew what he was doing. So one day he says he’s doing a ’32 Ford for a guy, all steel and all original body panels, but it is going to need some work. He asks if I want to come beat on some panels with him. I of course say yes and then spent a few days working on a couple of sets of fenders. See the rear fenders on the car, like every body panel on it, were original to the car. But they were both dented pretty badly. So the owner had brought another pair of original fenders that needed work as well, but not nearly as much.
Jack spent a day showing me how to work the metal and then let me go at it on the original fenders. The idea was to practice on the ones we didn’t think were usable and then I would be ready to work the better ones. Well after a few days beating on all four of the fenders, asking Jack for advice or instruction whenever I needed it, I got all four fenders looking pretty darn good. Good enough, that we ended up using one original rear fender and one of the replacements! This fender was beat to hell, I never believed I could get the metal back to where it started, but what Jack reminded me was that metal has a memory and ultimately wants to go back to where it started. It was a lot of hammer and dolly work, but when you really focus you can see the steel going where you want it to. It’s incredibly rewarding.
So when I saw this great video from the guys at Eastwood, I figured we should share. It reminded me of that fender in Jack’s back yard shop.
Watch and see what is possible with simple tools, some patience, and some practice.
