The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop what body tools should I get

I am going to learn to do body work and have bought a fender to use as my laboratory. I have a pretty tooled up garage. I am light on body tools.

I have air tools, hammers and dollies, MIG, Spray gun, and just ordered a DA.

What other tools should I start to invest in? ultimately I plan to restore my 52, if I live long enough :-)

Denis

You might think about a TIG welder. Many metal beaters prefer it to MIG for several reasons. The weld is much softer and easier to hammer flat, also warpage due to heat is reduced. It also gives you the ability to weld aluminum. Down side is the learning curve is steep. Another machine I use alot is a plasma cutter.

What do you have for hammer and dollies?

Torch set, shrinker / stretcher, shot bag, All 3 tin snips, scribe, layout die, and lots of patients.

And besides all of those things ( half of which I don't have) you may need to make your own from time to time.
After fighting the bottom contour getting flattened while I was 'cutting' with a soft pad I realized I needed a solid form for the initial cut which I used all of 5 minutes in the end. It took me a day to figure out how to go about getting there.
I finally bought a contour finder and got the old ( I'm talking a toggle on/off switch old) jig saw out and after cutting out a rough form from a scrap chunk of a friends hardwood deck and running those through a stationary router to true them up some I still needed to fine tune the final line so I came up with a cheap and versatile cylinder sander to mount on the drill press. An old bearing, a lug nut,a chunk of 1 1/2" pvc pipe and a soft plug later... a body tool is born

Thanks Everyone

Stanley Surform tools come in real handy for cutting down excess mud. http://www.qualitydist.net/stsuto.html

You also want an air file(long and flat), a manual long flat sander too.

check with auto body supply
i like the martin { spelling?} brand got a few that i bought in 1977 still my favorites

here some good hammers
http://www.autobodytoolmart.com/martin-4-piece-hammer-dolly-set-p-13680.aspx