What have you done to your wagon lately? (Let's keep the thread going!)

Nicely done. No one will ever know it was there.

 

That looks amazing. Great work!

Where do you source the sheet metal to repair these sorts of little things? That's been a big starter issue for fab work for me. I can bend stuff but it looks awful.

 

I usually source a 4' x 8' sheet of 18 gauge from one of the local industrial metal supply shops which will last me a few years unless I get into a big project.
For bending I have some aluminium & steel angle & round stock that I clamp into either a bench vice or an old Black & Decker Work Mate and use that to create bends & folds, I would love to be able to fit a sheet metal brake in to my garage but I just don't have the room.

 

Haven't gotten too far the last couple of days just a bit of spot puttying and priming. Also discovered when I tried to remove the tail lamp that one of the blind nuts is seized so I need to get some small cut off discs for my dremel and try to remove the nut without doing too much damage to the mounting stud, all that just so I can finish removing the side trim.

 

When I was younger I never understood the phrase "the snowball effect"
However, after working on classics over the past 25 years or so, I have come to know precisely what the phrase means.

 

You and me both. And when dealing with a customer who is cheap or doesn't care, you're shaking the champagne bottle before uncorking it.

 

I've had a few of those over the years, my wife claims that I'm a glutton for punishment.
Here's a pic from a collection I've also spent some time playing with.

This probably proves her point.

 

What Aircraft is that? It looks like it could be a Curtiss or Vought biplane fighter.

 

Hawker Hurricane mk XII built in 1942 at Canada Car & Foundry, Ft William ( Thunder Bay) Ontario. It was mainly used as an advanced fighter conversion trainer over here during WW II, what you see behind it is a Spitfire mk XVI.

 

Oh, yes, now I see it. And the Spitfire, all I can see is the cockpit hatch and roundel. But that is cool you're restoring that Hurricane. Will it be brought back to flight status, or only for static display?

 

Full flight restoration, no hanger queens here. You probably noticed the Hurricane's Merlin on the stand beside it.
Just for laughs here's one my wife took while I was getting instruction on cockpit checks in the Spitfire.

As for today we're now ready for wet sanding, masking and hopefully paint by Saturday afternoon.

 

Holy smokes! A Hurricane!? (or as the Brits would say a "Huricn") That is so fantastic!
I am not going to lie, pretty envious.

 

Me too, although, my coolest aircraft to see in person were the ones built by the "ME262 Project" at Paine Field, Everett, WA, inhabiting the old scramble hangars.

The story on those is that a bunch of Boeing employees were given job of restoring a captured ME262 two seater that was on static outdoor display in New Jersey. Well, they took it apart, made new drawings, rebuilt it, then used the drawings to make new aircraft. Of course, revisions were done to modernize these flyable examples, and the bigwigs at Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm, who were so impressed with the workmanship and attention to detail, assigned brand-new consecutive airframe numbers, to include them in ME262 construction history

 

That's pretty neat.