sigh....very frustrating....I called and talked to a local restoration shop the other day and talked to the owner, however he seemed quite short in his conversation and said he was running out the door getting ready for going to Carlisle.

I said GREAT, I will talk to you there......UGH, I talked with him alright, felt like I was bothering him with what I wanted.....he was short with me again. After some talking back and forth, again with him being pretty snooty about this project. He gave me a price of between $25-30k!!!

Sharon said he didn't want my business......I felt like forget this guy, I am not giving him any of my money. Customer relations is not their strong suit. They need to keep the owner in the back room and get someone else to be the front guy. I will take my money else where....I don't need to give my $$$$$ to someone that is grumpy!! If any body is looking to get work done in the northeast Ohio area, I will be glad to share this shops name with you. They supposedly do good work and your mileage may vary when dealing with this guy, I obviously got him on two different days on a bad day!

So, Sharon and I talked about it, we will make a run at it ourselves.....so what kinds of resins do we need? What kind of glass fabric do I need? Where can I get these items??????

Any good books on the subject????

Herb

 

Herb,

There is nothing to fiberglass body work that any person of average ability and desire can not accomplish. You will need polyester resin and glass mat. Don't use cloth as it will telegraph through the finished repair soon or later. There are a number of good books on fiberglass repair, just look around. The mechanics of body work is not at all hard to learn, it is the little subtle nuances that take years to learn. Anybody can make a strong repair in fiberglass, but it takes some real effort to make a strong repair that is invisible to anyone through the finished paint. As long as you are not adverse to countless hours of block sanding, you too can make invisible body repairs. There is a saying about fiber glass repairs, that you build up fiberglass resin and mat to make a repair, and then grind and sand away anything that does not look like a Corvette!

Just buy a couple of books and absorb all you can about the basics, and then ask questions. There are many of us who have done this fom many years, and will be more than glad to answer all questions.


Regards, John McGraw

 

Sure is easy to get " upside down " in these projects at those prices. Fiberglass repair isn't as simple as the books show. You may get it close and properly blocked only to have a couple years of movement show your weakness. Seen it time and time again. Getting the proper foundation is very important. The blocking and spraying the new base coats is simple with the latest equipment. Spend your dollars where they matter most.

 

Go to a marine repair shop, you can buy resin by the gallon and mat by the yard. make sure they give you hardener with the resin. Stay way from the prepackaged repair kits.

Cut you mat iinto sizes you will need before you start, it may be 6" by 6" squares, or 2" by 3" strips depending on the repair.....

Make a dipping trough out of the bottom of plastic gallon milk jug, something disposable. Don't mix more resin than you need, you can always mix more.

Bevel all you edges, read ST-12 on fiberglas repair.

Don't try to put more than one or two layers of glas on in a session, other wise it will slide off. Rough up previous layers with 40 grit sandpaper before applying new layers.

Buy Surform body files (cheese grater) in flat and curved, you can use it to take off excess glas after is has started to harden pretty good, but before it is fully cured.

Make sure your panels are all jigged together properly first, use can use sheet metal strips and screws, or clamps, and just about anything else you can make work. Bevel the screw holes prior to filling if you use screws. Cat and fit, cut and fit, cut and fit the panels until they fit.

Get some DuPont Protek for your hands before working with the resin, or try real thin rubber gloves. You don't want this stuff in your cuticles, it burns. Get some thin white disposable coveralls to wear while grinding the glas,and rubber band the sleeves to your wrists, wear rubber gloves or use Protek on your hands. Fiberglas dust is nasty

If you make a mistake, it is easy enough to undo it and start over

Doug

 

I bought my 56 in 73 and got raped without even getting a kiss (had to pay $3000 for it!).
In 74 we (a friend of mine and my self, he had some fiberglass experience) totally ripped it 100% apart (just to do a little fixin' up). Zero pictures not documentation was taken during disassembly. We did ALLLLLLLLLLLLLL the body and paint work ourselves. We painted every square inch of the car (top, bottom and inside). NCRS was formed in 74 and at that time I knew absolutely nothing about "correct" restoration. In 93 I removed everything from the exterior and had it repainted (with some very minor body work). The work that my friend and I had done back in 74 had held up fine--------------and its still in good shape. My whole point is that you CAN DO IT yourself. Take your time, use the right materials, get some good books (even though the books may or may not have the best info, any and all info is better than none at all) and the processes. Again, you can do it, it isn't rocket science.

Here is what mine looks like after a couple of amatures finished with it.



And this is some of the underside, frame was painted with Imron in 74.

 

Listen to you, the jack of all trades. Your talents amaze me. Rob

 

Yes, you can do it yourself.

i did my car at 17 years old,and had never worked with fiberglas before, just watched a few people do some work a couple times.

did I make mistakes? yes, mostly because things like bonding adhesive just wasn't available aftermarket back in 1974, so i fiberglassed the front fender panel to the inner fender. The only way to tell is look inside the fender well.

But after 32 years, nothing has broken or shifted.

I replaced the entire left front fender, including the front left lower from the door forward, the left rear fender from 1" above the shadow line back to the outer most taillight, part of the front right fender behind the front wheel, and pieces back together the nose piece between the headlights, and built up from nothing, the front 2" of the leading edge of the drivers door in the cove.

All the body shop I took it to to have painted did was align the doors,and use an airfile to do the final straightening on some of my patches


http://www.srtarms.com/Corvette.jpg

http://www.srtarms.com/Corvette2.jpg

http://www.srtarms.com/Corvette4.jpg

http://www.srtarms.com/Corvette6.jpg



Doug

 

Herb - Sounds like the guy only wants to deal with idiots & ultra-rich people who don't know what things cost. You are way ahead of that crowd. Keep searching, or as others suggest, give it a try yourself. I had an experience like that about 10 years ago. I need a new interior for a car, I supplied the material the guy says wow, that's a lot of work, it's going to cost you $12 - $15K (which would have translated into about 600 hrs work @ $50hr). I told the guy he was crazy and hung up on him. Found another local guy who did fantastic work and he charged me $2k (had to cut and fit all material for seats, door panels, and rugs. It was a big 4 dr sedan).

 

who is to say that spending $25k on body work and a paint job won't end up the same way....reading through? Seems to me that to some extent if the substrate is damaged at all there is risk no matter who does it.....and no matter the cost.....

 

you both did a sweet job of it.....the kind words here as well as the words of encouragement give me confidence to proceed....thank you everyone!!!

Herb

 

thanks Doug.....you and John McGraw have been a good source of encouragement and advice...I appreciate it!!!

 

good advice...thanks!!!

 

John, you are the MAN!!!! I appreciate the advice....I will be asking questions as I go for sure!!! I was at Carlisle this past weekend and saw Carols62. Had to go and introduce my self as I have looked at their web site several times....it was nice to put a face with the car and tell them thanks for sharing!!!

Herb

 

If you have any questions, just ask.

The encouragement I got from the guy I bought my car from was as such:

"You idiot, you put that panel on crooked, look at it. Do you want to drive a car around that looks like that? Cut it off and make it fit right and then fiberglas it again."

So I did.

Doug

 

I hired out a young guy at $20.00 bucks an hour. He "coached me on every move. Tried to do it out of a book and got in a little trouble, mostly with the terms like "ribbions" of hardner. Things like that. Anyway, I did almost all the bodywork, he painted it in my garage...never again, and I had about $2500 in the whole thing. It's a 3 footer, in black, it looks beautiful to the average person. Anyway, you can do it, but I would get a coach. It really isn't that bad once your into it.

 

not a bad idea....I have a couple of guys in mind....perhaps I can pay the one guy, he is trying to get a new project car completed and not sure if any kind of money will drag him away from his project as he is trying to get it ready for Detroit......good suggestion....I will see....regards, Herb

 

John, I agree with everything you say except about the cloth. Fiberglass cloth is used as a backing for strength. Mat is used as a filler on top of the cloth. Mat doesn't add as much strength to the repair as cloth does. Been doing fiberglass work for 35 years and never had a problem.

 

That's a great quote John.

I'll have to remember it.

Thanks.

 

You can use cloth, And I will not argue that woven cloth is very strong, but so much of my repairs have been on cars that are going to be judged, and cloth is the kiss of death if the judges percieve it. If you taper grind out the repair area enough, there should be no problem getting enough strength with mat, it is after all, what the car was built from to begin with. I strive to make every repair invisible from both the top and the bottom even to the point of tinting the resin to match the original glass, and have never figured a way to use cloth and not have it telegraph it's pattern over time. If you look at early 53 cars with original paint, you will see the weave of the cloth through the paint, since they were hand-laid with woven cloth.

Regards, John McGraw

 

The big difference in cloth vs mat is the amount of fibers per cubic inch you can obtain. The fiberglas provides the strength, the resin gives it shape. Cloth layers can be stacked/pressed more compactly with less resin per cubic inch, which of course, means greater strength.

Mat, on the other hand is more forgiving to compound curves,a nd if properly wetted and compressed, gives structural results similar to the factory panels, which I believe (if this is incorrect, speak up) were sprayed into the molds with a chopper gun, giving a random mat form.

Doug