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Straightening sheet metal

super99

super99

Well-known Member
This Oliver 1550 had a hard life before I got it. The hood has several dings in it and the rear section looks like waves on the water. The side panels have creases in them and the rear fenders barely have a flat spot on them. How can you straighten them? I laid the hood and side panels on the welding table and hammered on them but it didnt take much out of them. I dont need them perfect and dont want to spend the money to replace them, can they be straightened??
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Sometimes it helps to put some soft wood under the metal. The dent kind of needs to be hammered the opposite direction slightly for it to stay. Still it's one of those things that takes a lot of patience to do.
 
Probably wouldn't hurt to buy a cheap set of body hammers and dollies (HF) and watch a few youtubes. A lot of guys there demonstrating sheet metal work and reproductions. I see yours has a muffler hole just like mine.
 


Getting it closer than that is not really a DIY job. You will need to fill it. Watch some Eastwoods videos.
 
Straightening that stuff will be a good learning experience but not the kind of job you start in the morning and are done by five in the afternoon. I bet I got 40 hours in my Super M grille and forty more in the hood. Some gorilla yanked the sides up on the hood and creased it bad in three or four places. The grille seam was caved in and split the spot welds from the center around the right side plus a couple bars broken and some bent and a hole poked in the right top.
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I like to try for perfect but have to settle for what I get.
 
A good old body man can work it but it's rare to see anyone even try it now a day's. Using the steel table to hammer against is futile. The metal has to move past flat as it will spring back a little. Use dolly's and a sandbag to hammer against. Use heat and ice for the spots that won't hammer out a small spot at a time. A heat gun is hot enough and ice will contract the metal. It will be a slow go.
 
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