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Hey guys...

It has been a LOT of years since I have played with bondo and done any bodywork at all... however recently Achipmunk got a hold of an old NOS tailgate for my '37 and sent it out to me...

I little sandblasting and it was good as new... except for the usual minor shallow little dents and dings you'd expect in various places... I realized it was time to try to remember the bodywork I had learned 20+ years ago and tackle the project!

The bondo work went pretty smoothly and it all came back to me pretty quickly... I applied one application, then sanded and feathered it... circled the areas that visually appeared to need re application of bondo to fix little rough spots, re-applied and sanded it and it looked great and I was done... or so I thought...

It was only then that I remembered something an old bodyman once taught me... "Ignore how it looks... feel how it looks!"

I closed my eyes and ran my hand over the entire surface I had just done... and sure enough picked up a few places I hadn't even seen "rough spots" or applied any filler... each time I found one I'd circle it, close my eyes and move on covering the flat surfaces, then the round "tube" ends...

All in all, using the old bodyman's technique I found probably another dozen little areas that needed more work... most were very minor, but once they were all located I went back and filled those too, sanded them out and now there are NO rough spots... it looks AND feels good and should be ready for primer tomorrow, this time with very few flaws...

I'm curious if anyone else has used the "eyes closed, hands on" approach to finishing their body work and if it has worked for you better than just eyeballing it as it did for me...

~Trev

yeppers !
i have seen my body man with lottsa little pcs a tape on his back hand...feels a spot he wil stick a pc a tape down ...an move on till gets em all ..then he knows where to look

Using cotton gloves also helps.

Thats a great method for finding rough areas, it comes in real handy when doing round fenders or headlight buckets. I like to keep a pile of bondo dust close by to coat my hands. It makes them slick amd I think it keeps some of the oils from my skin off the surface. Joe

Cool so that old bodyman DID know what he was talking about... well after yesterday's project I was pretty sure of that anyway...

Kinda cool to see it's commonly used and accepted cuz it sure does work!

~Trev