professional tools, equipment, and skills

If you're a newcomer ton restoring a collector car you'll need to locate a space for the project and equip the shop with the essential tools and supplies. Later I will describe the space requirements of a car restoration project and talk about the shop needs. You'll also get a quick but important lesson on shop safety. Each of a collector car restoration project's many phases calls for new skills and sometimes specialized tools. One of the ways to learn the new skills is from DVDs and videotapes. Other ways include talking evening courses in useful skills like welding or engine overhaul at a technical high school or community college. Often clubs hold technical seminars at members' shops; you not only see the restoration process demonstrated, but also get to do some hands-on practice. These various learning methods, plus the old-fashioned approach of reading a service manual, are discussed as they apply to the various restoration steps.

The Dirty Work

Cleaning, degreasing, derusting, and paint stripping are necessary preparation steps before rebuilding or refinishing most older car parts. Several methods can be used to get parts clean and free of rust. We'll look at the options, which even include paint that "seals in" rust, making it possible to bypass the derusting step on some parts. Since cleaning, stripping, and derusting can be time consuming and tedious, there's also the option of hiring this work out. However, for finances and other reasons, having someone else do the "dirty work" for you is not always the best approach. Later on I will thoroughly describe each of the commonly used cleaning, stripping, and derusting methods---with some timesaving shortcuts.

Body and Paint

Metal repair removing dents and rust stands along side major mechanical repair as most hobbyist restorers' number one fear. " How am i going to fix this hideous looking rust so that the repair is done right and doesn't show an amateur's touch?" Working with metal requires special tools and skills. For this reason, many hobbyists hire out metal repair to professionals, but it's possible to do highly competent, even craftsman-quality metal work yourself---- and the investment in tools will be more than repaid by not writing big checks to the body shop. While becoming competent in the techniques of metal repair takes a fair amount of practice, later we will cover
 the steps in enough detail to get you started. Mopsrt important, you'll learn what not to do. Mistakes with metal can be expensive to fix.

Like metal work, painting is a high-skill process that's often hired out. However, doing the preparation steps can save lots of money and it's possible, through practice, to master the techniques for applying a prfessional-quality finish. Changes in technology, both paint products and application equipment, work for and against the hobbyist. Older, easier-to-apply paints are disappearing, but application technology is improving, making the modern paints easier to spray. Please keep reading on as I will eventually get into describing traqditional and modern paint products and walk through the steps for their use.