slight disaster today, harold called me to tell me that the sandblaster messed up my doors. the guy let his nephew blast the doors, he's good, but not as good as the guy himself, his inexperience showed in the waves my doors picked up. the good news is that harold's fixing the doors for free (hammer and dolly not 10lbs of bondo) since he put my trust in this guy. he's going to head down and talk to him tomorrow and find out what happened.small update: tomorrow I'll be removing my brakes, steering column, and headliner, the final pieces before starting to sand it down.
I wish you luck but from my experience and believe me when I tell you, I have had a lot of blasting done over the years and I have done a lot of blasting. When a panel is warped from blasting, hammering and dollying does very little good. The metal will actually be stretched from the heat of the blaster and will likely require as much filler as it looks like it will. Whatever you do, don't let them sandblast your hood and deck lid. Plastic media blasting is the preferred way for sheetmetal and it doesn't cause warping.
ditto on that..unless Harold is a mesiah with a shrinking hammer it will be extremely hard to get it straight without bondo. I have sandlblasted many pieces in my time, never warped a panel yet. I am selective on what I blast. You have to know the limits of what type media you are blasting with. I would personally never sandblast a maverick door, media would be the choice for me. Dan
I watched a guy one time get warping out of a hood by heating it with a torch then dripping cold water on it from a wet rag. Took awhile but it turned out ok.
Well, you're right about the filler, but it won't be much, just more than there ever should have been, (that means any). This is my first restoration project and I'm learning as I go, *shrugs* gotta find some things out the hard way.
The only thing I will sandblast is small stuff. Large panels I won't even try to use sand on. For one thing, there is the very real chance of warping the metal and for another, it's a real pain getting the sand out of everything. It's OK for getting rid of spots of rust, but I won't try it on a whole hood or door. There is a guy in the next town that uses baking soda for blasting. We sent some 56' ford pickup fenders out to him and when they came back, the metal was as smooth as glass. The only problem we found is if you don't get every speck of baking soda residue off the metal, the primer and paint won't stick worth a damn. That was our fault for not cleaning the fender jambs well enough, but other than that, the baking soda did a nice job of removing the rust. Has anyone else ever tried this method of sandblasting?
Jean, I have heard of the soda blasting but have yet to see it. It does however seem to be getting more and more popular. We have a local blaster that does most of the blasting in the area and I expect he'll be trying it very soon himself. I have heard good things about it.
I did get a look at the doors today when I dropped off the mirrors and locks (so he can line everything up right the first time). Harold is going to weld two 1/4" nuts on the inside of the door so that I can mount the mirrors good and solid when I'm done. The doors have 3 spots, about 10 inches long, where about 1/16" to 1/8" max filler had to be put down, the 1/8" thickness is only in the very lowest spots, I was impressed with how much he removed with a hammer. Picking the doors up friday.
Your sandblast guy must be a solid dude. Most people would have sent you packin' with your warped door panels and never thought twice. Sure they messed up a bit but stood by with some integrity.
