The Brookfields Special

[DavidL]

Paint in aluminum...? I really do have no shame.

[David Stepney]

Well reall, I'm shocked!  I hope the vibration shakes that Devil's Gobbo out...

When I was an apprentice, my boss would have no truck with body filler, which he referred to disparagingly as "Kaygo".
 If anything required to be filled, it was done with lead loading. He would do it effortlessly and made it seem so easy. I had a go a couple of times and all I did was to get more lead on the floor than on the work! His favourite comment to me was: " you'll never make a body man as long as you've got a hole in your (vernacular deleted)!"

The moral of the tale is: we are all good at something. It's the "something" that isn't always the same!

[Spex]

" If anything needed filling, then it was lead loaded"


Of course, lead loading aluminium was his Special Trick, wasn't it!

[David Stepney]

Spex.
Aluminium is nice and soft (usually, although Birmabright (the stuff Landrovers used to be made of) is brittle and extraordinarily difficult to work) and you can usually beat it into submission - eventually! It tends to work harden so needs to be heated to anneal it.

I don't know of anyone who lead loads now. Modern resin based body fillers will adhere to anything, including aluminium

You can even get a spray on body filler, although you need a special gun nozzle and it is imperative that the gun is THOROUGHLY cleaned immediately after spraying using the recommended cleaner.

I was, however, commenting on Duncan's stricture and not on Howard's approach.

[Duncan Grimmond]

It maybe pedantic but I see filler in new work as an admission of failure!

[Howard Wright]

Hi All

Seems I've failed  .

I did get the blister nearly there by planishing but I don't have many metal bashing tools.  I could have done with a "mushroom??" dolly AND I was working with 1mm aluminium which turned out to be too thin.  I got perilously close to bashing through.  Bad workman blaming his tools eh!

That is not to say that using filler and spraying is not without its skill requirements.  I'm now getting ready to spray my third top coat on the radiator cowl after finding some minor filler related blemishes.  This is not helped by choosing to use a satin finish.  With satin you can't cut back and polish like a gloss finish so the final undercoat has to be perfect!  

Anyway minor progress report (apart from hours spent preparing panels for paint).  I've fabricated part of the transmission tunnel, cut holes in the dashboard for the instruments and completed the seat back to include some doors in from of the rear storage deck.

Cheers

Howard

[Duncan Grimmond]

If you started with 1mm ali you managed surprisingly well! I would still leave it without filler though, then you could always smooth it out at a later stage...

[Howard Wright]

"If you started with 1mm ali you managed surprisingly well! I would still leave it without filler though, then you could always smooth it out at a later stage..."  (Duncan Grimmond)

Ooops, Too late.

Cheers

Howard

PS I'm not a fan of odd bits of ali on an otherwise coloured car.  All aluminium OK!

[Duncan Grimmond]

Despite my reservation it does look good

[Howard Wright]

Hi All

As well as spraying wheels today I got Liz to take a pic of me sitting in the car.

I thought it was amusing when I posted the first pic way back in June.

So much has happened since I haven't had time for a haircut!

Cheers

Howard