I used to read every bit of printed material that I could get my hands on, and had the good fortune to work with a few real old-school "tinknockers" over the years, and countless hours working at it.
And I don't consider myself an expert, it's a constant learning process...
The modern plastic fillers are pretty good. Evercoat makes some good products, I use their polyester finishing putty for my fills.
The shix went way up in price a few months ago but it's worth it, it spreads out & blocks nice; it's harder than regular bondo.
Keep the updates coming!
Glen
Thanks for all the tips then. I was thinking of wheel weights...my dad and nephew work at a dealer so I'm sure I could score enough--but not warranted now.
I've got evercoat aluminized metal filler. Maybe I'll just go with that.
Hazen that's coming along great!
That front lip is a birch to repair, it has always been common for these to get punched in the nose.
As long as you have no floppy metal surrounding, or "false stretch", the repaired front lips could be a candidate for lead fill, the rest looks like it will block out with maybe some light putty or a couple coats of high-build primer.
Lead is only really warranted when blending into a previously leaded area, or on the edge of a door jamb or somewhere where it's liable to get nicked/chipped.
When I have all of my metalwork done I do a light guide coat and vixen file the area, and my rule of thumb is that, as a minimum, repaired areas have to file to at least 50% clean metal, and no filled low spots over .050 thou thick.
If you're going to lead it, spend a few hours doing test pieces first, and yes lead has gotten stupid $$ nowadays.
You can save the runoff & excess drippings and pour it into sticks and reuse, that's where a cast iron lead pot comes in handy, but don't be tempted to used wheel weights, fishing sinkers, etc cuz the tin/lead ratio is unknown.
Glen
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