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When we got our ‘71 Nova, Project Swinger, it was in rough shape. Because of all the rust and body damage, we had to do a lot of metal work to straighten out the rough body of the car. To accomplish this, we used many tools. While the use of certain tools may be obvious for metal work, others are less evident but used to complete a professional body work job.
Dolly Would
Body dollies and spoons are very important hand tools to use when straightening a rough-body car. They are used as reinforcements for body-work hammers.
While body work is mostly hammering out dents and using body filler to make the car‘s surface flat, the use of dollies and spoons insures that the surface being worked on will be smooth and not covered with hammer marks.
Dollies are used on the underside of a dent that is being tapped out. The dolly gives the metal support while helping shape it in the correct curvature. Spoons are used to even out the pressure of a hammer blow to a particular section of metal.
For this reason, spoons are placed up against the metal before being tapped on by a hammer. Dollies and spoons come in many different shapes and angles.
Hammer Time
A variety of hammers are used when doing body work on a rough-body vehicle.
In combination with dollies and spoons, hammers are used to tap out dents and straighten body panels.
Pick hammers can be used to tap out very small high spots on a piece of metal while a bumping hammer is best used for larger dents or areas like the fender wall.
Some body hammers have a slight curve to them, such as the door skin hammer. This hammer is useful in hard to reach areas. Tight corners might require yet another kind of hammer, such as a shrinking hammer, that has a round and square end to fit many different areas.
Finishing hammers come in different styles that help completely smooth out flat metal areas or recreate grooves that were damaged or bent. The key to using hammers for body work is only exerting as much pressure as is needed to shape the metal. It is best to start out using softer taps and building up to a more forceful swing than vice versa. If you start out with too forceful of a tap, you could do more damage than good, compromising the shape of the body more.
Rubber mallets can also be used when doing body work. Just like hammers, this type of hand tool is used to tap out dents in a rough-body car. A mallet is used to do the initial bending of metal because they are less precise than hammers. Rubber mallets are used as opposed to wooden or plastic mallets for body work because a rubber head won’t scratch or leave marks on the metal.
A slide hammer is a hand tool that aids in popping out minor dents. Other known as a dent-puller, a slide hammer usually makes use of a suction device to pull out a dent.
The suction device is pushed over a minor dent and then pulled, popping out the metal in the area. Other slide hammers use a welded fitting to pop out dents.
With these types of slide hammers, the base or legs are positioned around the dent while a pull stud is welded into the center. The stud is then attached to the hand puller.
By pumping the hand puller, the stud will be pulled upward, bringing the center of the dent with it. This is a more evasive way to pull dents out but is used for stubborn areas.
Slingin’ Mud
Body filler, or Bondo as many gear heads know it as, is used to finish off sheet metal work. Bondo is actually a brand name of body filler but has come to be used to refer to plastic fillers. Body filler fills in areas of the metal that can’t be shaped completely using hammers, dollies, spoons and mallets.
Body filler is the most overly used product when doing body work so you should be careful to use only as much as is truly needed. Using too much of it will cause the area to crack, break and be damaged over time. The thicker the body filler, the easier and faster it will crack. However, if you don’t use any of it, your body work won’t be as smooth as it can be.
Body filler is applied by using a squeegee. Then a piece of metal is used to scrape the surface of the body filler to even it out with the surface of the surrounding metal. Any extra body filler can be removed from the body’s surface while more can be added if the area isn’t completely filled in. The key to using body filler is moderation.
Small air bubbles can form in body filler when it dries. When these bubbles pop, it creates little pin holes in your filler. These holes must be patched by spotting putty so that the body is truly without imperfections. A rubber squeegee is used to apply the spotting putty to each pin hole.
A Sanding Ovation
Sanding is done to remove body filler that is built up on the rough body from a previous owner or to smooth out the body filler and metal when you are done with your body work.
Rather than using regular sand paper alone, it is wrapped around the edges of a sanding block before use on the majority of a vehicle’s body.
Sanding blocks hold sand paper taunt against a flat surface so that a metal or filler surface can be made flat and even.
If you don’t use a sanding block, you risk sanding the body’s surface unevenly and creating waves in the filler.
Sanding blocks come in a variety of sizes and shapes so you can sand the entire car properly. Sanding can also be done with an electric sander. Care should be taken when using an electric sander so that over sanding doesn’t occur.
If you’re looking to do body work, it can be an excessive project. We recommend using the right tools and taking your time to insure that the job is done properly.
We look forward to moving onto the next phase of Project Swinger now that our metal work has been complete.
