Morris Minor Owners Club

Good thinking, you can still get distortion even with joggled joins though. Take it nice & slow & don't have the heat in one area for too long, you can make the seam weld by doing lots of very short bursts.

Hope that helps & doesn’t sound patronising.

don't worry about sounding patronising when you give me advice, I appreciate any knowledge you can spare. Yes, I read somewhere that you should do the panel in small bursts to avoid the heat buildup in one area, I'll follow that tip, and the one from J about a heat sink. I placed a soaking wet towel right behind the floor panel and although the towel sizzled a bit, there was minimal heat in the panel and zero distortion. Cheers Rich.

I'd be very interested how you get on with the joggler/joddler, as I'm keen on getting one like that myself.
A friend had a roller version, but I guess each has it's advantages/disadvantages

Ray
I bought the Joddler/ punch version some 15 years ago and have found it an invalueable tool for fabrication.Couldn't live without it.

The combined version is a little more expensive but saves mucking around with a drill for the holes.Not that a drill doesn't have it's place.
The head just swivels around between joddle and punch, couldn't be simpler.
Just make sure you joddle/ joggle on the right side of the metal and always "downwards" so that there is no step for moisture to sit in.Always clean the metal well first of all, whilst the metal is flat i.e before you get the tool out.
A bit of cardboard is useful to practice on.. to make sure you have enough metal and the right position.
Roller versions are great for long runs ( more complete sheets ) but I find most classic car restoration is about small patches or otherwise it's bigger manufactured repair panels to fit.
Each to their own.
Best of luck with your respective restos.
Bob

The first cut is the deepest, and the hardest to do cleanly, this is one area where skill is developed with time and experience.

Not sure what is happening here, I have browsed an image, opened it and it dissapears on the preview, must be a temproray glitch with the new style website, i'll try again in a couple of days

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here we go its back again, must have indeed been a computer glitch, the image to my last post.

the plate cut oversize by 25mm for the 10mm lip at the bottom and the 10mm step overlap at the top, (5mm extra for the step) the curve where it meets the bottom of the wheelarch has to be scribed in.[frame][/frame]

I'll clamp a hard edge over the top to act as a guide to stop any distortion when I tap the edge over to form the bottom lip

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clamped between the timber edge and an old metal spirit level edge, the lip is tamped down gradually with the hammer, forming a 90 degree bend.
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just the angle of the wheel arch bottom edge to be marked and cut out, then its ready for the top edge to be joggled, um when the joggler arrives from Ebay.[frame][/frame]

May I recommend that you look at 'bodyshop 'hammers. Sealy do a set of 3 with resin handles which are great starter hammers. They give you much better control as each head is designed for specific jobs. They are much lighter than your claw hammer , which will give you arm rivalling those of Popeye by the time you have finished.

Yes, my arm was rather tired by the end of this. I should have asked advice before I purchased these on Ebay, Hopefully they will arrive in the post soon.
They come in a set and were very reasonably priced. I wondered what the difference was between ordinary carpenters hammers and a proper body shop one, my tired arm's telling me. what are the other bits used for? the "Dollys"[frame][/frame]

I had to make some decent hammers for the wheeling machine. The big mallet is an oak Newel post (sp?) from a staircase and is harder than a Newcastle Slapper. The metal hammer has been made from a piece of 4130 rod and some silver steel stock. Is is hard enough not to get damage on the face that would then leave marks on the soft steel you are folding. It might be worth getting a fine file and some serious polish on the hammer faces to keep them from marking?[frame][/frame][frame][/frame]

That teardrop is incredible Rob, like something you'd see on the wing of a spitfire. and the fact that it's been hammered out of one piece of flat steel is amazing. Well, this just makes me want to get out there and practice.

the panel has been angle ground to match up with the tattered edge of the lower wheelarch. now just the top to be stepped in.[frame][/frame]

Good work. It might be worth cleaning up the rust on the left of that last pic before the panel is cut to shape, otherwise you might find you need to replace more metal that you've cut for.

A dolly is for removing dents & straightening things up, you hold it one side of the panel with the hammer the other. So you've got something to hammer against. A bit like you were using the wood for when you made the fold. Not sure if I've explained that very well.

how did you make that tear drop
thats brilliant, did you do it with just a hammer and wood???
and how do you make the metal stretch???

RobThomas wrote:...... and is harder than a Newcastle Slapper....

I, too, am in awe of how much you can get a bit of steel sheet to deform with the right skills, must be very satisfying!
"A good metalworker can make any shape he wants, a bad metalworker can make any shape but the one he wants"

I'm mainly the latter, with occasional spurts of undeserved genius just to keep me trying!

Hmm... What's happened to the italics?

you're right Rich, after noting your comment I shot out there and cleared of the rust to see, reasonable metal underneath, phew, a bit pitted, but solid.
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At last I've got my hands on my joggler, it hasn't pushed as deep a step as I was expecting. It is a hand operated one, so if my use of heavy hammers doesn't give me muscles like popeye then using this hand Joggler will do. here's the panel ready for weld hole drilling.[frame][/frame]