wheeling model A fenders

[patman]

Hey guys thought that I would share how I like to straighten old fenders. Have any of you guys hammered and hammered on a fender and ended up with to much time in it? Well a portable wheel is a fast and relatively simple way to straighten a fender.

this poor old fender has seen alot of hammering my guess is that the whole front of the fender was folded down at one time the little faint detal line was just gone and there is a big flat spot on the top of the
fender


squashing out some of the big stuff and found where the line and radius should be at this point this is all hammer and dolly work but the line and the rest of the smoothing will be done with the fender roller

now with most of the radius put back in with the fender roller using a steel lower anvil that is the right radius and a rubber caster wheel on the top its time to change to the flat steel upper wheel to finish off the radius.

getting closer now its time to put the detail line back in the fender and this is done with a pulley with the out side part machined off to that the one side of the pulley is centered and a rubber wheel is used on the bottom and with a few passes and increasing the pressure the line will come back
the fender roller is made out of bench seat frames the fender is alot better but its time to take care of the huge flat spot in the top of the fender before the rest of the front is ironed out

now at this point i smashed the spot up with a dolly and the spots are not really all that bad but there are alot of them so fender roller to the rescue.

now the way i started was just using enough pressure to squash the dents not stretch them and when the surface was level but alittle wavy thats when i started to jack up the pressure to start smoothing the fender and now you can see that who ever fixed it the last time tried to grind the surface level and that was alittle bit of a challenge having thick and thin spot in the fender some of the scratches were so bad that i welded up the really bad ones I was alittle worried about a spot getting "Pinched".

now on to the back of the fender the edge and wired edge was to mangled it couldn't be saved of off with the old and on with the new i put the old wire into the new part about a inch and a half so the wire joint and the patch joint don't line up so its stronger

now with the new piece welded on it time to straighten the last of the back half just like the Front was done.


now all that is left is a little tuneup on the edges then its ready for epoxy and this is what i use to do the edges



heres a picture of the roller its alittle heavy but not when you sucker the painter into doing the other fender
so what do you guys think??


Pat

www.CustomRidesbuiltmine.com

[Michael]

Love the post. a little more detail of the tooling used is always helpfull. I will be starting on some 35 ply fenders soon. will try to use some of your methods. thanks.

[Kerry Pinkerton]

Great post Pat. Could you do another thread on the fender roller? That looks useful.

[Joe Hartson]

Pat, how much does your roller weigh? I made one but it weighs 30 pounds and is too heavy to use comfortably.

[patman]

If I had to guess 15 or 20 pounds the frames are 5/16 thick its not to bad to use but you know that you've done something after a half hour
Ill do a post on this roller and the roof roller i made with all the measurements and all that good stuff here before to long

Pat

www.CustomRidesbuiltmine.com

[Joe Hartson]

Pat, thanks for the weight info. Will be looking forward to seeing your post on the rollers.

[Justin C]

Thats a neat looking roller. I could have used one at work today.

[sevt_chevelle]

Pat, great job!

Always wanted to try and use a fender roller but never really found much info or anyone suggesting its use.

I did happen to come across a few rollers on ebay some time ago and borrowed the pictures.

[Ron W]

Thanks Pat! Great post. Very informative! Ron W