A was for Austin, but now B is for Bedford

That Men's shed sure has the Politicians onside for grants and funding. That is si the largest one I've seen.

WOW, a lead wipe repair, that is a fair dinkum an old repair. when I started panel beating lead wiping was demonstrated but only for a day and then not touched on again ever, which usually meant it was old fashioned back in the early 70's.

While working as a maintenance fitter in the GMH body assembly plant, Elizabeth, SA, my bench was about 10 metres away from the lead wiping booth. Watching those guys in action was astounding, no fuss, and quick - they had it down to a fine art. I tried it on one of my cars and sort of got it right but resorted to bog thereafter . . .

At Acacia Ridge ,GMH did a lot of lead wipe repairs to new bodies ,instantaneous fix ,no waiting for bog to harden ,and no clean up after ......Sadly ,some of the new Holden (HQ.then) bodies also had rust damage to them from storage out in the yard ....They had a specialised paint shop where if you paid extra ,or were a long time employee,your new Holden could actually have paint on the bare metal inside ......Taxis also got the extra paint job.

GMH didn't appreciate the guy who put his Morris Minor through the paint line one Saturday John.K.!!! Mind you there was a black dip line also which was brilliant for the odd foreigner/homer that would come out of the ovens looking like a NASCO spare part. :whistle:

Would be a great place to shove B for's original O type chassis, in case I do end up using it and as this is looking more likely just at the moment I cleaned it up a bit today. No red paint left on it hardly now, and one wire brush decimated. At least it was nice out in the sun. Sun, what's that?

Looking good PDU. I too spent some time out doors today doing the lawns and other jobs and took no time at all to loose the coat.
Back on that lead wiping if my fading memory recalls rightly you would prep the area to be wiped and then put wax on your paddle the melt some lead onto it and spread it out. The wax stopped the lead sticking to the wooden paddle.

I don't recall any wax cobbadog, and can't say I ever saw any in the lead wiping area either? But I was a rank amateur at that time, barely two years out of my apprenticeship. :S

Chassis needs a good cleanup where the timbers were under the tray and then I'll give it a coat of Kill Rust followed by chassis black . . .

Cobba, not a panel beater myself, but I think the "stuff" on the paddle was actually a creamy flux.

That could well be the case as people have a way of calling the same items by several different names. I remeber it was like a wax and we coated the timber paddle jsut before softening the lead and then wiping it in place. It also seemed to help stop the timber burning so much.

I'm not so long here, but after a few sides I have read, it's really interesting PDU, so I'm glad for the "rest".

Glad you're enjoying it DieselFan, it isn't quite so much fun from this side, at times, but if we didn't enjoy it I guess we'd be collecting stamps, doing jigsaws, or climbing mountains instead?

As I have said before, we're a mob of tragics, simply reliving the memories of what we amusingly refer to as the good old days . . .