Bodywork Tips & Tricks – beginner and intermediate techniques for autobody repair

Okay, just giving it a quick charge. Again, I think it looks pretty good. Hey everyone, welcome to the channel. Today I'm going to show you some bodywork tips and tricks to help you get your car ready for paint. Let's get to it. The first thing you're going to need is a car that needs massive help. And here we are. I am building a K1 ATAK kit car. This has some major panel gap issues as well as some much needed bodywork. First, we're going to go through the typical goal of a garage DIY guy. You're going to want a flat smooth surface and we're going to want it quick and we're going to want it cheap. Let's talk about the investment. You're going to need both tools as well as consumables. The tools, you're going to need some block sanders as well as some soft sanders. For consumables, you'll need some fiberglass or fiberglass filler. You'll also want some regular lightweight filler as well as sandpaper. As far as sandpaper goes, remember our goal is flat, smooth, and quick. Sandpaper can really help with the quick part. So I usually start with something really coarse like 80 grit and that'll get you pretty flat, pretty smooth, and pretty fast. The only issue is it's too coarse to kind of then paint over. So after that you'll want to step down and sandpaper to get smoother and smoother. My rule of thumb is you never go more than double the grit size. If you started out with 80 grit, your next step should not be any more than 160 grit. And again, if you are 200 you shouldn't go above 400. And that will kind of help you kind of get to that smooth part the fastest. I've got a demonstration here. Two different objects. This one is kind of a cylinder so it's curved in one plane. This is a sphere so it's curved in that plane but it's also curved in that plane. For a car that has a gentle slope, a gentle curve, as long as it's in one direction this will still work pretty good. Just a nice flat sander. For something that's curved in two directions you'll need something like a soft sander and that way you're able to kind of still get the curvature but kind of make it sand to match the curvature. All right, so for the car for the back here, again some very nice big flat surfaces. This has got a little bit of a curve this way and a little bit of curve that way but it's flat enough that I can still use kind of these big block sanders. Here at the back you'll see it's got a curve kind of going this way. So kind of coming in and out of that plane as well as it's kind of coming up and down. So this is kind of a better section to use kind of a soft sander. Some other examples would be kind of this fender. So it's curved kind of this direction but also this direction. For long flat surfaces you're going to want to use as long a block as you can find. It'll help maintain straightness and avoid any waves that might come. Another tip, it's tempting just to brush it off or to blow it off to get a clean surface. The best is to actually vacuum it off. When you blow it off dust goes all over and will put a fresh coat of dust on anything in your workspace. Rather than blowing it off, vacuum it off. One additional tip, before you put on any additional filler clean off your surface. And when I say clean, not just dust it off but also wash it off. Wait until it is dry before you apply any additional filler. When you're sanding on fiberglass you may come across something that looks like this. This is where the fiberglass was not completely saturated with the resin and it's kind of got a little air pocket underneath. And the way that you can tell is basically you just take a knife or something and you can kind of cut away that surface and you've got kind of sand and other things underneath. So what I do for things like this is I will just take the knife and kind of cut it all out. Because again, this does not add to the strength and can potentially cause issues with paint or other things if you've got kind of a weak substrate. So here's what it looks like when it's all cleaned out. So again, it's quite deep although it had a shallow layer on top. Again, you're just able to cut that off and remove that kind of weak material on top. Again, before you put additional filler or fiberglass on this, just need to vacuum up all the debris as well as give it a good cleaning. Before the filling process, you'll want to evaluate all your geometries. This particular geometry has an overhang. This will be challenging to fill. So I usually get either a piece of cardboard or in this case a piece of rubber. Find the shape that'll match for what you're looking to do. In this case, I already have one that's been used a little bit. And it matches just right. And so this will help you kind of create an even kind of radius along the bottom, not getting too much on top or the bottom. It's just really a good tool all around. For big surfaces like this, like sanding, you want to use kind of as long of a spreader as you can. And this may not even be a spreader at all. I have this. I think this is for baseboards. But I end up using this because it's a long spreader. It'll help so that we don't have to sand as much later. One tip that I have is to be able to reuse some of these, I put a layer of tape on it. When the filler gets on this at the end as it starts to harden up, it's really easy to peel the tape off. And then this is kind of good as new or as good as it was. I will even do this to my spreading tools like a like a credit card or a gift card. Just like that, you got a new card again. So one thing I've used to get good panel gaps, really consistent, really even is some of this rubber. Now this is 16th inch rubber. And it's about the width that I would like to have my panel gaps. So let me show you how I use that. Here I have my pieces of rubber in place. And I will go ahead and start some filler. Next tip is you don't want to mix any filler that you're not going to be able to use within, say, 5 to 10 minutes. So for me, it seems like I want a lot. But again, if I can't work through that in about 5 to 10 minutes, it'll just end up hardening it and won't be able to use it. I have my rubber in place. I've got this cleaned and degreased dry. So I'm going to go ahead and mix up some filler. One of the things I've done is I use just kind of a disposable plate that helps me kind of control the portion. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to fill, kind of trying to fill all along there so I can get a nice panel gap and try and make things even across all this. So as you can see, I tried to blend all the way back. This panel was quite a bit higher than this panel. So again, lots of filler on this side. I've got the rubber strips in there. And as this starts to harden up, I'll do a little kind of cut and then I'll just pull them out. Okay, so taking out the rubber, basically just, most time you just kind of stretch it and it kind of breaks it free. And then you've got kind of a nice panel gap. Again, you have to sand it to kind of make everything look good. But I'll go ahead and do the other ones. Okay, here's another rubber strip. And again, I usually, if I tug on it, it tends to kind of break the tension all the way across. And then you just sand over that and it tends to leave a pretty good gap. We'll check it out afterwards. So there are some that say that while it's still green, you can sand, you know, as it starts to kind of get a little bit firm. What I've found is, yes, you can, but it will gum up your sandpaper pretty quick. So for me, I have not found that to be extremely useful. I usually just wait till it's pretty firm and where it won't gum up the sandpaper. The filler is now cured enough that we can begin to sand. And again, for this section here, this is kind of my big flat panel. And instead of kind of just going up and down like this, I will kind of go back and then forth this way. And what we're looking for is just kind of a nice even transition across this panel to that panel because that's where we had kind of a gap difference. Another tip is when your sandpaper gets clogged, use a wire brush and it tends to clean it right out. Sometimes after I pull out the rubber, there's maybe a little part that needs to be cleaned up. What I'll do is I'll fold sandpaper. The advantage of folding sandpaper is it'll slide very easy where there is no resistance, but where it's kind of thinner, then it kind of is very heavy. So you don't remove material you don't want to. To ensure sanding an even radius, I'll oftentimes use like a drill bit or a socket to get kind of the diameter I want. And I'll wrap that in sandpaper. And that makes a good tool to make sure it's even the whole way around. This is after the first go around of filler. And as you can see, it's very even now. Got some nice clean lines, kind of on both sides here. And this is looking pretty, pretty smooth. A couple of thoughts. Once you... So again, this is fiberglass and it's got white gel coats. Once you kind of start breaking through the gel coat, it's probably about time to stop. So if you're still finding it's uneven, you need to add filler. So here we've got it pretty even all the way along. I've got a few spots. So anywhere where you kind of see stuff like this, this is just areas where it's just a little bit shallow. And so that's pretty easy to go back and fill. This is kind of the gap from the rubber and it works pretty well. Again, got a couple other small areas where anywhere you kind of see it's not even texture, that's a good sign that it's not flat. So you need to add just a little bit more. And we do have a couple spots here that are definitely low. And what I like to do when I'm about this spot, so again, just got a few touch-up spots, I will actually get out some guide coat because there are some other low spots that are hiding that are just kind of harder to see. So I'll get out some guide coat and kind of go over it again with some heavy grit sandpaper and see where those low spots are. And then I will fill all those little spots. I'm going to show real quick how the guide coat works. So you just get a little squirt there. And it really kind of dries almost instantly. And basically when you start to sand, you'll watch that this will kind of start to get, almost looks like it has scratches. So what it is, when the sandpaper goes across the surface, it scratches the surface. And the places where it scratches, it actually will make kind of white scratches. And that's the high spots. What is left is the low spots. And if there's guide coat on that, you'll see those low spots as dark. And as you continue to kind of sand away, all those high spots go. So it gets more and more white. And you're only left with fewer and fewer dark spots and low spots. And when you're all white, it means there's no more low spots. And just like that, that kind of confirms that it's all kind of even. There's no deeper grooves. After some quick sanding, let me show you. So we kind of knew there was some spots in here that were low. So you can see low, low, low. These are all very visible. Some of the parts we didn't know were low. It's like over here, this looks a little low. We've got just kind of a few spots here and here. Even some there. There, just a couple little spots there. So the guide coat really helps to identify those low spots. One other tip that I do, it may not be necessary, but essentially we're trying to build a solid base. And even some little paint sometimes makes me worried that we don't have a good foundation. So to remove that, I'll just get some acetone. And what I'll do to make sure I know where the spot is, is I'll just kind of circle around it. I end up using just a dry erase marker because it comes off really easy. For sanding body lines, so the lines between these two panels, I've got a tip or trick for that one as well. So I use tape. The tape allows you not to make a quick or sudden bend. So it keeps a nice consistent line. And you can kind of tape it to match the line that you want. So this one, I want kind of just a little bit of a curve. And what you do is you kind of sand up and you can kind of see that there'll be just a little bit of white here, but not there. So again, this helps you kind of get that straight line all along that edge. So I've sanded it. And essentially, I'm just trying to get rid of the little white edge that I could see. And the tape really doesn't provide a barrier, but it does kind of give you a visual indication of when you've kind of got to that space. So basically, this is looking pretty good. We'll take the tape off and see how the line looks. And so what we're looking for is just a nice even line all the way along. And to me, that looks pretty good. Again, we'll take off the tape. We've got a good line right down there. When you're applying filler to the very edge to try and fill kind of some of these last spots, feel free to use a generous amount and even go over. Those are very easy to kind of sand off later. Here's what it looks like when we lather it on. Again, don't be shy. And this will come off really quick once it sets up. Okay, here's that edge all nice and cleaned up. I will give another tip here. So this is an edge that kind of comes to a pretty abrupt point. If you don't want this to be super pointed, like even this edge here, it's tempting to kind of get your 80 grit and kind of round it off. I'll tell you, I would wait. Use something like even 200 or above, because these kind of delicate edges will sand through very, very quickly. Again, big flat plane. 80 grit's good because it kind of breaks through that nice, but kind of a delicate edge. Wait till you get to a finer sandpaper to kind of start sculpting that. This is some 220. And what I usually do is I'll just kind of fold it around and just kind of drag it across. That kind of just breaks that edge. And I think it gives it just a really nice look. And that's about all you do. Here's another tip for the filler. If you get some like in a spot where you don't want it. And I've got this. So it's kind of pretty firm. I shouldn't say firm, but just kind of like this. And if you can't kind of just wipe it up. So you see it's like not wiping up. The best thing I found is Windex. It's got the ammonia in it. And I feel like it kind of helps break down the filler and gets it to wipe up a little easier. So if it's already dry, the only thing that'll get it off is pretty much sandpaper. I've done once over with kind of the guide coat and just kind of sanding with the 80 grit. So this is kind of everything's good. I don't see any kind of those dark spots, low spots. I've kind of got this kind of profile how I like it. So at this point, you go do another guide coat and you go your next sandpaper size down. For me, that's 150 grit. We just finished up the 150 and it is just incredibly smooth. But we're not done yet. So we're moving on to, I think my next size is 240. 240 is also about the time. So I think 80, even up to about 200. You can still, I'll call it shape. About 200 and above, it's more just smoothing. You're no longer trying to shape anything. So I put a coat of primer on. I'm going to let this dry up. One of the things always to look for. I end up always having some pinholes or other tiny imperfections that are just really hard to see when you've got kind of the filler and other body work. Again, we just get just tiny, tiny imperfections that we can see a little better with a coat of primer on. And sometimes you need to see things in different light. So see right here's one, you can't really see it. But as I kind of cross my shadow, it's like, oh, you can see it a little better. So you kind of want to use a light or shadow to kind of catch all the little spots. And then what I usually do is I go with some glazing putty and kind of fill it all in. I put some putty on all the tiny places I could find. So from here, I'm going to kind of sand it and put another coat of primer on. I sanded all the areas that needed a little bit of the glazing. So now I'm going to wash it and then put another coat of the primer on. This is after glazing, sanding, and re-priming. So at this point, we're pretty close. The last thing I like to do is kind of even out all the textures. So I will wet sand around 400 grit. For me, another tip is anything that's kind of around 300 grit or finer, it's easier to wet sand just because it tends to clog up the sandpaper pretty quick. Here it is after the wet sanding. One last thing I'm going to do is take it into a different light, kind of outside and see how it looks. It's one of the last tips I'll give you is look at it in a different light. This is what it looks like in the light. We'll check for any more kind of imperfections and also give it a quick drive. Okay, just giving it a quick charge. Again, I think it looks pretty good. I think the panel gaps look good. Nice even coat, smooth everywhere. That will do it for all the tips and tricks of bodywork. There is one more though. Please add yours to the comments below. So that'll do it. See you next time.