A set of panel beaters' hammers and dollies comes close to essential for the serious restorer, both for truing up existing body panels and for carrying out final shaping of bought-in repair panels. With some practice you should find that you become capable of fabricating certain repair panels for yourself, which saves money and also means that there are no delays whilst repair panels are ordered or collected.
Two basic skills have to be learnt; how to stretch metal and how to shrink it. This is because whilst it is easy to form a folded lip on a straight edge, to do the same to a curved edge means that either the lip must be stretched (concave curve) or shrunk (convex curve). To the decision whether the effort is worthwhile must rest with the individual. Acid dipping would remove the hard work from the process, but add cost to the restoration.
Two basic skills have to be learnt; how to stretch metal and how to shrink it. This is because whilst it is easy to form a folded lip on a straight edge, to do the same to a curved edge means that either the lip must be stretched (concave curve) or shrunk (convex curve). To the decision whether the effort is worthwhile must rest with the individual. Acid dipping would remove the hard work from the process, but add cost to the restoration.
