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This is a subject that I haven’t really touched on, well as far as I car remember, the question is where do I start, there’s a lot to cover, and I obviously can’t cover it all in this short article, but I’ll try to touch on some of the basics ideas behind custom automotive sheet metal work.

Obviously you do custom sheet metal work to your car when you need parts that you can’t find, or the parts aren’t being reproduced yet, or there just simply wasn’t enough production numbers of the car you own for a part reproduction company to build them.

So now your faced with locating parts that are extremely hard to find, or were never built in the first place, let’s say that you’d like a hood scoop for your car, but don’t like the idea of using fiber glass or plastic, so now you know that it has to be made from sheet metal.

The first step is the conception of the idea, you look at your hood, and the body lines of your car, and from those two things you come up with a basic idea for the piece, then you do a sketch of your car with the scoop on it, try a few different ideas with the sketch, and shapes, and dimensions.

Take your time on this part, if you have to try a hundred different ideas, it’s always better to make your mistakes on paper, then on your car, once you get an idea that you really like, it’s time to fine tune it, make 100% sure that all of your measurements are correct, this will save you a lot of time and money.

Once you have a solid idea, and a good sketch, you can buy the sheet metal for the job, the sketch and measurements will tell you how much to buy, and I’d suggest doubling up on the amount, just so in case you make a mistake.

Now it’s time to talk a little about the tools that you’ll need for the job, this list can get long, but I’m going to try to keep it as short as possible, I’ll give you a numbered list, this list isn’t in order of importance either, it’s just a list of tools.

1.Body Hammers of all shapes.
2.Bead bags for forming in dented shapes in the metal.
3.Plastic metal shaping hammers, you can get these from the Eastwood company, and a lot of the other tools that you’ll need also.
4.A shrieker stretcher tool, for making a flat piece of metal have a bend in it.
5.A metal break, for bending 90 degree corners in metal.
6.A mig, or tig welder.
7.A drill and bits.
8. An Air Grinder, 5″ grinder, and a 90 degree air grinder.

Once you have all of these things, you can begin to make your concept in to a reality on your car, in later articles I will go in to more detail about the actual use of these tools, and what they can do for you, if you don’t want to do the job, you can farm it out to a shop of course.

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