I saw a pair of '48-50 F-1 fender on my local CL for $75. They were in pretty rough condition so I let them be. Then they were relisted and I just couldn't resist. I have seeing old iron being sent to China so I contacted the seller. Turned out it was our own Forty-niner. He bought a better pair of fender for his F-1 and wanted to get rid of these. The inner fender panels were in pretty good shape so I figure I couldn't lose anything and made a deal to buy them for $65.

Here's what I got and what I'm have been doing the last few nights. You dry, sunny southwestern guys can stop laughing and go to another post. Up here in the rust belt these are considered normal, not really desired, but normal.



I started on the right fender. It looked like someone must have had some kind of rack bolted to this fender and it got caught on something. Their were three 1/2" bolt holes and a nice 1/2" deep crease in the upper fender. There was also the normal rust.



Hammered out the dent.



Made a patch panel for the rust out on the side of the fender.



Welded the hole closed and welded in the patch.



The inside support piece was rotted so I made a new one, I used a bent bolt, hammer and my bench vice to form the bead.




The front of the fender and bottom matting surface was also pretty far gone so I cut out the rusted metal, made a patch and welded it in. The front patch took a little time because it has a compound curve I had to shape.




I know some will think I'm wasting time on a set of fenders that are so far gone but I wanted to let people know that sometimes even the worst looking fenders can be saved. I also like a challenge and repairing rust.

 

You make it look easy Bob! That area where the angle down is at the front of the wheel well is a tough one.

 

I agree with Ross, you do make it look easy. Nicely done, posts like this give inexperienced guys like me the courage to attempt metal work on our own.

 

wow, and what do you paint these with to make sure your handiwork survives the test of time.

 

Thanks for posting this Bob. I'll definitely look at this again before tackling mine-very inspirational!

 

Looks good, nice job, another one saved. I like the bent bolt trick, I'll have to remember that one.

 

After I get the body work done I'll cover it with epoxy primer. These will be spares so they aren't going to painted any time soon.

 

great winter project for a snow belt guy. can spring ever get here?

 

You make that look so easy. It makes me want to go and take a metal work class...hmmm, I wonder if there is one nearby. They used to have some at one time but for some reason I thought they dropped those classes. Gotta go look now.

 

Nice work!!! Might want to put your pictures and write up in the fabrication thread.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...uve-built.html

 

Nicely done Bob!

Inspirational, makes me think I can tackle the few small issues on my truck.
Thanks for showing us your work. I like that you tackle this stuff with basic shop tools and gumption. Who needs a fancy bead roller when you have an old bolt and a hammer.

Bobby

 

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll toss my picture on that post also.

 

And not one mention of the highly collectible after market fender mounted turn signals that I threw in to sweeten the deal. Phooey!

Bob, so remember, our agreement was that after you're done, I buy them back for the full $75, right?
When you're done showing off with the prelims, be ready for the second act: running board recovery. This one was used to find every rock and stump in Grampa Splitek's (the original owner) back forty. This thing is so bad not even Corey could take it. (If you're looking closely, you'll see the anti-oxidant roofing tar skillfully applied to the lower third.)

Actually, I'm more interested to see what you have in mind for the skeletal lowers.

Nice work. Apparently, you have been getting your offerings ready for the Jefferson swap meet.

DW

 

That's another thing I wanted to mention but forgot. I do have some experience doing metal and body work, I worked in the auto body field for about 6 years and started playing around with it when I was in my teens and still do a fair share of it now for over 30 years. But I don't have a lot of fancy tools. I do have a few things the average Joe doesn't have like a plasma cutter and a MIG welder and a few other specialty hand tools but I mainly use two simple body hammers, 3 body dollies and whatever I find in my shop.

To form the bead in the brace I laid out the line I wanted, used the flat tip end of my body hammer and made dents along the line to stretch the metal. I then opened my bench vice up about 1/2" or so and started hammering the bent bolt along the line to form the bead. I then hammered the sides of the bead to flatten the sides.

To form the round lip of the front patch I used a piece of pipe. I also have a chunk of train track rail that I use as an anvil.

I don't have a stretcher/shrinker, a bead roller, planninshing hammer or English wheel. To make the compound curve on the front piece I clamped one of my body dollies in my bench vice and held the metal over it at an angle and tapped it with a body hammer.

I really wanted to let anyone contemplating doing there own body work that you don't need $30K in tools to do the work. I think in just my basic hand body tools I might have, maybe, $100 invested in them. I could have gone cheaper with some Harbor Freight hammers but I don't like going cheap with hand tools if I can afford it. The biggest part of doing this type of work is patience. I haven't always shown patience myself and that has led me into trouble. Once I cool down and look over the situation it usually starts to work out. Especially doing metal shaping. The one rule I try to follow, and at times it hard, is it's not how hard you hammer the metal, it the number of times you hit it. What I mean is you don't want to wallop the metal, you just want to give it little taps, the metal will move a lot easier and will go where you want it to go with little taps. Patience, that's the trick. Now I just have to go find more

 

[QUOTE=FortyNiner;14091850]And not one mention of the highly collectible after market fender mounted turn signals that I threw in to sweeten the deal. Phooey![?quote]

Duane, sorry, as desirable as the "highly collectable after market fender mounted turn signals" were I had to deep six them. I couldn't get the nuts off. I know, what a waste.

Ah, add a zero to the right of that

Yeah, Grampa Splitek applied some of the anti-oxidant roofing tar to the fender also. One good thing, even though the fenders were in rough shape they had never been worked on and butchered up. I even found some original black paint where the road tar sprayed on the inside of the fenders. It was in pretty good shape under it.

I am thinking of building completely new ones. I think I could build a set in a couple of hours, less time that it would take to repair the originals.

That's what I'm thinking. I have so much "junk", as my wife refers to it, in my shop I need to thin the stock a little. Plus it's a good way to get away from home for a weekend. The trick is, if I do sell anything, not to let my wife know about it. She can smell money if I have some and always finds a bill to waste it on.