DIY Muscle Car Restoration - How to Lead a Quarter Panel Seam
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.ค. 2024
- In this video I walk through the steps involved when filling the quarter panel to roof skin seam. Originally filled with lead body solder, many restorers are opting to use fiberglass or metal fiber fillers. Follow along as I go "old school" and walk you through the process I use for a more traditional repair using lead body solder.
All of the tools/supplies/materials used in the video are can be found at your local or online autobody supply.
For 30/70 lead solder, I prefer the sticks sold by Rotometals:
www.rotometals.com/30-tin-70-...
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Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:29 My preferred body work methods for the quarter to roof seam
01:25 "Mapping" - Why I don't use fiberglass fillers
03:50 Vette Panel Adhesive
04:25 Materials List
05:45 Prep & cleaning of the body seam
07:20 Tinning the metal
15:28 Panel prep after tinning process
18:40 Lead sticks - Eastwood vs. Rotometals
20:40 Getting ready to add lead
21:30 Melting and paddling the lead solder
32:00 How to file lead body solder
35:50 Is lead compatible with todays top coats?
36:20 Sandpaper selection
37:35 Final sanding of lead body solder
37:58 Outro
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I love that people are trying leading. It was definitely an art when I was taught.
It’s kinda like man discovering fire now.
I've seen too many problems with trying to use modern fillers in quarter panel seams, so I turned to the art of lead soldering as an alternative.
Great work there, some years ago I did a restro on my truck using lead 20 yrs later still no issues, I used all metal to slick everything down, rust encapsulate then epoxy primer and emron paint.
Thanks! Yeah, I've always had great luck with lead. I know a lot of people have a negative opinion of using lead, so I'm glad to hear you had a good experience too.
I understand how you want to make the surface super clean. But when you add the tallow to the paddle, what keeps that from contaminating the solder? Do you have to clean off the tallow repair area afterwards so primer and paint will stick? When you go to file it, are there different grade files needed, or can you get by with one like that 8 tpi files. Do you feel lead is easier to work with over the plastic filler?
I know it sounds counterintuitive, but the tallow doesn't cause any contamination issues. It may surprise you that some of the old timers use bees wax or automatic transmission fluid instead of tallow! It must be a thermal/chemistry thing. All I do after applying the lead is rinse the area with a solution of baking soda to neutralize any acid left by the tinning flux. Then I file/shape and follow up with one more baking soda rinse, W&G remover, and then epoxy primer. I don't see the need for any other file than 8-10tpi. Lead is definitely NOT easier to work with in terms of shaping than body filler, but due to the potential risk of being able to see the seam (mapping) later down the road, lead solder (or a welded patch across the seam) is the better option here (IMO).
With all the attention to detail and good reasons to avoid filler, why wouldnt you make the body lines out of lead since you're literally right there working that area, so those channels are clean and solid? Seems like it would be the closest to OEM, more durable, easier, less time consuming way to do it?
That's not a bad thought. Lead could probably be used to create the roof skin/quarter body line, but I chose to use VPA instead. As I mention in the video, VPA is a much better option than fiberglass/all metal. I opted not to use lead for a number of reasons 1) lead is harder to file/sand/shape than VPA, especially on that type of body line 2) managing the heat and melting lead while getting a crisp body line can be difficult 3) because the VPA filler is sitting on top of the lead filler, there's little to no risk of mapping due to different rates of expansion like you'd get if the filler was adjacent to virgin metal. Thanks for the feedback!
That seems like an extreme amount of heat on a panel
Just enough heat to get the tinning flux to react with the metal and then to melt the lead. Extreme heat would result in discoloration of the metal and warpage. It’s important to keep the torch moving.