Great gaps take any project to a new level. It’s one thing to have the gaps close, it’s a whole mother thing to have them dialed in just perfectly.
The first step of this process is to make sure the doors (or whatever panel it is) are flush, and the edges of the panels are in the right place.
- Use aluminum flat stock, laying against the panels, spanning as much area as possible. This will show you the overall shape of the area, and where the edges need to be. These will vary in thickness, depending on how much shape is in the car. Something really straight might require c-channel. See the picture below.
- Ideally, all of the metal should touch these aluminum guides. In the real world, that is extremely rare. So we want to shrink down high areas, pull out low areas, and make sure all panel edges are just barely touching this aluminum.
- Why? It’s very important that all the panel edges are consistent, and not thick. This ensures all edges will be metal.
- You could say these pieces of aluminum flat stock are previews to where the body filler will be.
- Typcially, a hammer and dolly works to move the edges of panels around, and work out as much of the panel as possible to follow the aluminum.
There are many more steps following this, but to start, this is very important.
