quote:

---

Originally posted by Fred W B
Random Thoughts while shaping

I haven’t posted much progress detail lately. The work I’m doing now doesn’t show well in photos, but the shape and surface is getting better and better. I prefer to post details of what I’ve done, not talk too much about what I’m still going to do. I saw on another car building forum a guy posted nice renderings of a car body he was going to build. He gave himself a month to build the plug. After two weeks he had a lump of hacked about foam, and he gave up. Sorry mate – It doesn’t work like that.

All this sanding means you have a lot of time to think while toiling away in the garage. Making a body pattern single handed is a silly amount of work. To do this I think you do have to be determined, some would say bloody minded. It reminds me of when I was cycling competitively, and later racing karts. Sometimes while doing the activity (cycling – while feeling bad and just just hanging on the back of a bunch, karting – being nerfed off the track, or having other issues during a race day) I would think to myself – “this is madness, I’m not enjoying myself, I’m going to give up”. But then at the end of the day you see you have finished a bit higher up than last time, and you feel better, and so you give it yet another go. Having like minded mates to chat/drink beer with after also helps a lot.

I have seen a couple of references that state doing a body pattern the old fashioned way takes maybe 1000 Hours. I reckon I am averaging at most about 10 hours a week on the project, so that would be two years. Currently just starting the 20th month of work on the pattern and I hope to finish this year still, so that 1000 hours seems about right in my case. I read in USA magazine “Hot Rod”'s paint and body issue that rod or muscle car high end professional paint jobs may have 200 to 300 hours of block sanding alone in them – and that’s on an existing car!

I try to concentrate on just the area I am working on, without thinking about the all the work yet to do. When I get despondent I look back through this thread and see how far I’ve come, and that improves my resolve to keep going, as does the positive responses from you guys here.

Experienced builders might smile at the notes below, but I put this down for others who may be considering a similar project. Maybe they are just notes to myself:

There is no “easy way”

Don’t agonize over how to approach or do something. Just start, and move on from there. You may find that eventually the first thing you did has been changed/replaced, but at least you started.

Get each stage as good as you can before you move onto the next. It’s easy to shape wood/foam, less easy to shape GRP, a pain to correct stuff at the body filler stage. Getting it absolutely correct at the drawing stage would be first prize.

Don’t expect to get every section 100 percent the first time. Get it good, do another section, work round the car, when you get back to it you can get it better.

Even when you don’t feel like it, or just have a little bit of time, get in the garage. Things don’t get built if you aren’t in the garage. Even if you just tidy up a bit, you will do something.

Do everything to the standard you want. If it bothers you every time you look at something, rework it.

If you get tired, or find yourself rushing to finish something at the end of a day, stop. Do it next time. You will make mistakes and have to redo it if you don’t.

When you think you are just about finished, you aren’t - The last 10 percent takes 90 percent of the time.

Anything can be fixed / reworked.

Cheers

Fred W B

---