Auto body specialists needed for body line recovery

[AmadeusCharger500]

This question relates to my 73 charger se.

I just replaced 2 quarter panels and cut/replaced about one quarter of the sheet metal at the bottom of each door. Lots of body line reconditioning is needed.
My question is this.

What are the techniques for blending body lines for repair work. i.e lower portion of the doors. Also around the wheel well moulding area, my replacement quarters don't seem so sharp.

I've heard things like taping a paint stick to the area and doing a slight build up with filler. However I tried this several times and got basically no where.

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Heath

[Dino]

There are many ways to do this.  The bondo trick is a little different but if you can, bring the body line back into the metal, not the filler.  If you have one of those dent pullers you can go down the line and make it a bit more sharp.  If you want to use bondo than get a wide roll of masking tape and tape it right under the crease.  Use wide so you have a straight line.  Then cover that with more tape, you can use thin rolls now, and keep going over it until you have about 1/8" of tape thickness.  Now you have a thick edge to work with.  Bondo up to the tape and scrape the putty knife over the tape so you have a crisp line.  Let dry, remove tape and bono against the result.  Now you have a line.  Again, rework the metal if you can but this will work.  Oh and use the best metal filler you can afford, don't try this with finishing filler.

[AmadeusCharger500]

Thanks Dino that makes more sense building it up like that. What metal filler would you recommend? I used to use metal to metal I think it was from evercoat.

[Dino]

Thanks Dino that makes more sense building it up like that. What metal filler would you recommend? I used to use metal to metal I think it was from evercoat.

Yeah I remember that stuff.  Somehow I recall there was an issue with it but I may be wrong.  Quite honestly I hope others chime in with more info on that because I've been out of the loop way too long.

[Chargen69]

we used "all metal" on my car. no big problems to fix, but if anybody ever guages my paint it will guage out as thick paint no filler.

http://www.uschem.com/index.cfm?page=productDetail&id=54&pid=1

[AmadeusCharger500]

I found that product in eastwood so I'll try it out. Both doors needed work and on one I was able to recreate the body line somewhat in metal. The other was just too difficult to get it lined up although I replaced a bad spot with clean metal.

Other part of this question relates to curved lines around the wheel well. I replaced both quarter panels, and on the passenger side it appears that the line is a bit faded toward the front of the wheel. Is there a way to sharpen this up a bit, and or is this even desired in the end result?

[Patronus]

I use tape to build body lines. I start with green tape down the line then blue then green then blue and so on until you have 4 or more (depends on how much you want to build up) Then add your filler and sand until the top layer of tape is just starting to pop through. I prefer to prime and 220 that. Then put 1 or 2 layers on that and fill the bottom. Sand to the tape, prime and sand again.. Pretty simple.. We call it 50/50ing. You can use this method with just about any body line. Then after - pull all the tape and prime again down the line both sides. Tape and sand, tape and sand......forever...