Jockbolter 50, from my experience doing the tricky procedures in metal working benefits greatly from beginning by having proper technique demonstrated. Back in the early 1970s when I was restoring my '36 pickup I took an evening adult education class in body repair. The instructor was the owner of a body shop.
Even then he acknowledged that body repair without bondo was a "lost art" in the commercial shops. He was, however, a master of that lost art and demonstrated for the tiny handfull of those of us who were interested ultra-light gauge metal welding, hammering the weld, bumping metal into rough shape, hammer/dolly finish metal shaping, finding high/low spots with a vixen file, pick hammer use for raising of low spots, minor shrinking with a "slapping file", major shrinking with an oxy-acetylene torch/hammer/dolly/wet shop rag.
I was awed by what could be accomplished with the most simple and crude of "old school" tools. Forty years later I still like looking at my restored '36 pickup and going down memory lane about all the skills that restoration project taught me.
Recently an old friend who is building a auto cross race car with his son asked me to shrink a damaged panel on their race car. To my total amazement I could still do it, kind of like never forgetting how to ride a bicycle. So, once learned, those skills are with us until we're sitting in the rocking chair drooling.
I will admit that the world has changed since then and the emphasis now is on speed of finishing and low price, not quality. That is why China's economy is thriving.
