[patterg2003]

I have had a life long interest on repairing and replacing metal on cars. I have built a few large patch panels and then painted the repairs to make them disappear. I was lucky to be mentored by a good friend on how to lay down paint and have painted 3 cars. I had a brother inlaw cut the lower rear quarter off his 70 Chev Caprice to find that there was no patch panels available at that time. I took patterns off the left side and successfully replicated a metal lower on the right side. The give away was some imperfections visible on the trunk side. It was basically survivor mode when I was younger to keep the cars on the road and looking good when when times were tight. My nephew rolled his truck and they picked up a good cab and doors. I massaged the dings and dents back into shape, replaced a box side & sprayed it out for him. My dad was extremely capable and mechanically inclined and I probably had my head in the way growing up. Took shops in high school & went of to college to be an engineering technologist. I worked in an pulp & papermill engineering office designing, fixing, upgraduing equipment and working closely with trades and contractors to get the work done. It was good work. I retired and went to the Alberta oil sands for 3 years & was happy to be there. The wife retired and I was missed so happy to be home again.

I am just finishing building a 4 seater airplane that is scratch built. We hand formed and built an aluminum winged with rag & tube fuselage airplane. The airplane has turned out to be one that we can be proud of. I developed a unique system of fabricating forming dies and jigs to press in the wing rib hole flanges with a router. I believe that it could be a first for machining round male dies as there was no access to a lathe. The male plug dies and female die were machined with a circle baseplate on a 3 hp router that were extremely accurate and indexed with the rib form patterns. I wrote a 30 page manual on making tool & dies with a router on the Bearhawk forum. Developed a system that was shared to router all the wing inspection hole parts that fit tight for a clean airflow. Submitted several articles to the builder quarterly to make processes easier or better known for fellow builders who have not got there yet.

I picked up a 40 Ford that needs to be brought back to life. I would like to learn as much as possible on the equipment & methods of shaping sheet metal rather than buy it all. The intent is to observe & learn as much as possible to advance the skills. I enjoy the satisfaction of doing high quality work and look forward to reading the threads of those willing to share their work. It is impressive to see a master deftly coax a flat sheet into a full quarter panel or into a fat fender.

Second goal is to see how members build their own equipment whether it be planishing hammers, e wheels, forming bucks etc to be independent.

Glenn