The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop 1952 3100 "hood work" (sheet metal restoration)

I have the chassis completed on my '52 3100 restoration project.
Now the sheet metal.
First the hood.
The hood halves have no rust to speak of and no dents or body filler.
The hinge support substructure has substantial rust. So does the metal under the nose of the hood. It is so bad that I don't know if I can patch it up and end up with an original looking part. I'm going to give it a college try with an elementary school set of skills.
My labor is free to me.
I have taken the hood completely apart. I mean drilling out rivets and spot welds, the works.
My challenge will be to reconstruct these parts to exactly the way they are supposed to look and to fit properly to retain the proper shape of the hood.
I'll take some pictures along the way and keep y'all posted.

Carl, I'd cast around for a hood that has the sheet metal looking like tinfoil and harvest the front latch panel and the rear hinge structure if they aren't as rusty as yours. If that stuff on yours is looking like swiss cheese you might better off with solid replacements.

But if you can put it all back together with what you have, that's good too.

I found my extra hood in one of my storage sheds and I am going to remove the hinge hood brackets from it as they are very much repairable.

Nothing is impossible with some time and determination that's for sure.

I picked up some cheap sheetmetal tools like an English wheel, bead roller and slip roller and have worked them all to death over the years on my various projects. It's pretty neat what can be done with em.

And of course not being afraid to cut and weld to get that end result but that's clearly not a problem for yourself!

I still have some cutting and welding to do with the bracketry removed from my hood in storage, but they are sound enough that I won't lose the integrity of them during the process.
Hoods are difficult enough to align without having to worry about misalignment of the hood because my repair was too far out of specs.

I finished the welding up the swiss cheese under-hood brackets which I salvaged from a spare hood I forgot that I had. They are ready for blasting an epoxy primer.
A shout out to klhansen! He realized that I was probably going to be separating my hood halves and would be in need of hollow rivets to button them back together.
He sent me a PM to that effect and offered me the rivets which he had leftover from when he replaced some of them on his hood.
There are some great people on this site who would give you the shirt off their back. It gives me great hope in mankind.
Thanks Kevin!

Carl,
Sending you an assortment of rivets. A bunch for the hood halves, some in two lengths for the rear fender braces (don't remember which ones I used, but I think the shorter ones), and some shoulder rivets that I used to repair the bound up cowl vent pivots. A little drilling is needed to use them, but they worked out well on my truck.
Any that you don't use, share with fellow 'bolters out there on the east coast.

Will do!

Santa came early today via USPS. Lots of rivets.
If anyone needs the rivets for a side cowl vent or rear fender rivets, drop me a PM and I'll send them to you.
Thanks again Kevin!

You're very welcome, Carl.
BTW, I used those shoulder rivets for the top cowl vent, but I suppose they might work for the side cowl as well. Since I don't have a side cowl vent, I couldn't check that.