another update.....

[Guest Anonymous]

Its mind numbing really. I am going to be re-re-re-re working both the front fenders. The right front is good all the way up to the turn signal area, then there is significant "bow". I taped a thin strip of balsa in the identical area on both and you can see how much of a dip there is on the painted fender as compared to the one in primer. In the other pictures you can see a whole bunch of measurements - with still more to do. I will also be making some cardboard templates of the various surfaces to help me as I start the re-work on the Left (primered) fender. Unfortunately it isn't going to be just taking away material but taking away some here and adding some there. The saw horse thing is working out really well, I only wish I had thought of it before I started on the left side.....live and learn.

[Guest Anonymous]

I spent most of my time this weekend measuring, measuring and re-measuring .... again and again and recording that information. I also spent a good deal of time making templates of various surfaces from the finished (more or less) fender so that I can apply those for comparison to the unfinished (left side) fender. I also spent a good deal of time strategizing on how to approach the re-work. Basically what I am going to do is fix the front of the right side fender where it is concave which will make that fender complete (at least in theory). Then I will start to re-work the left side from the back (nearest the door) towards the front. The front is the most complicated so I will leave that for last.

Bottom - back side of right front fender

cardboard template being made of bottom

Cardboard template applied to left side-note the "goldfish box" - the carboard in cereal boxes and similar is great for making templates like this-heavy enough to keep shape but not so heavy to make it difficult to cut (and is essentially free).

Here is the line traced from the template. You can see how much material I need to trim back.

The fronts of both fenders. The front left was about .75" longer than the right so I trimmed that to make them equal. You can see that both the radius and the starting point are different, so I will have to modify here as well.

Cardboard template of the correct radius and starting point.

[nbcbird]

I can understand how difficult it is to try to match the contours from side to side. But I just remembered a contour tool that bodyshops use for just that purpose--it comes in different lengths with small blades that lock into place. Check out "profile guage" in Eastwood #11192. It might speed things along.