A man and his lead

Grabbed this off my facebook and had to share. How often do you see a man using lead. Wow, impressive. Sorry I can't devuldge who's car it is but it is not in the states.
 

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Ok got so share and burst some bubbles here. first of all I'll say been there done that would do it again but only to play round. I do still have a set of paddles and handles and files. the last time I did a repair with lead was in the 80's. it's still a filler. still laid over the top of the steel and still subject to all the same problems every other filler has. it's good properties are that it will not rust and is easy to work once you get it on. a large rust hole like is being worked on here will require a backing. you can't put lead over air. so here I have a fine example of a car that has factory lead, old repairers with plastic filler and repairs with lead. you are correct in the statement that the ability to apply lead to a steel surface is a lost art. if you have ever seen the factory footage of line workers leading seams it's something to watch. so here are the pictures we see. factory lead that has split and is failing old plastic filler that has split and is failing and a old lead repair that due to the nature of the repair had so much primer in place of filler it has failed. all will need redone. all will get repaired with a newer filler using a epoxy base with aluminium flakes. given time it will fail to. the picture of the plastic filler threw the screen wire. to see some one doing this for a rust repair would make anyone cringe. but it was done a lone time ago with out a failure. they got away with it because the panel was open and it could not trap water. when I first look at it I though it was lead. it's not it's plastic. so for any repair to last you need to cure the reason the panel rusted threw to began with. in this last picture water was trapped under the undercoating rusted threw the panel. knock off the under coating and you lost the trap. there is no way this kind of repair should have lasted a year in salt country but it's still here. that last shot just to show, Yes it's worth redoing one more time. look again at the picture richard posted see the old plastic used for the first repair. got to be 1/4 in thick at the skirt
 

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The only reason that lead was used in the old days is because plastic filler hadn't been invented yet. The first plastic filler was first made available in 1958.
 
Thanks, both of you, for the great pics. Always love pics! The interior of the Eureka looks to be in amazing condition. I'm always fascinated to see the various color and material combinations used in interiors, especially on Eurekas. I've seen come Eureka combinations with very colorful and interesting interiors, and of course there are relatively few ambulances to be seen. The red interior reminds me of a '51 Eureka 3-way that I have pictures of, from many years ago, now long gone. Great car, Ed! I hope you finish it off. I'll certainly want to see it! Tom
 
ed i think you covered it well. I just want to say, i too can do lead and it is very pretty to look at when all finished off, but in my car when i find factory lead in them i take a torch and melt it out and replace it with today high quailty fillers. They are made much better and the longivity is much better as long as the prep and application is done well, and not abused. i have had some of my custom cars that i did lead work on them and went to a couple of shows down south on crazy hot days and had the solvents in the lead wake back up and see faint shadow of where it was done after. So as paul said if the tec was around then that we have now they would of used that. todays primers and filler are way better the the stuff of years gone by, but you just need to say with system that are compatible and not mix up lacqures and urethanes.
 
The next time you see a '60 - '63 Imperial LeBaron, look for signs of the leaded seam around the backlight. The cavity was too large for the smaller limo-like window, so the smaller one was made to fit by leading in the metal surrounding the glass to fill the gap. The '59 and '60 Cad Broughams from Italy ( Pinin Farina ? ) also have lead, as do the '57 - '65 Ghia Crown Imperials. I dimly recall reading somewhere that the Ghias have a couple hundred pounds of the stuff.
 
there is a lot of lead in a pro car. it was the filler of choice till Sheller Globe took over Superior. but nothing lasts forever. I got a good look at a 58 Pierson. all fiberglass. it was breaking down. the thought of fixing that gave me Hives. no thanks I'll stick to my rusty steel.
 
All depends of where you live.
Here in northern Quebec, Saguenay-lac-St-Jean district, the temperature goes below -48 F at the end of january some days and stays between -7 and -40 during 2 months, and can go upper than 90 F. at some car shows in july or august.

If you dont put your restored car in a warm garage during winter (which is the majority of the collectors, you cant heat an unhabited garage for a car every day during 6 months that's stupid and expensive) there is no chance that any modern plastic filler would stay in place more than 2 years without cracking, having a drop of water inside and rust under it.

So we have the choice, using something harder to work on but that will stay longer and use a minimum of filler as possible, or using something easier and cheaper in time but that we will have to re-do each 2 years and a half. Dont know for you but painting a car every 24 months that's a pain in the * !
 
temperature extremes are a real killer. the expansion and contraction that takes place in different types of material and different thicknesses will really tear one up. we get a 50 deg swing in a 24 hr period here but usually not that low. our max is around 40 below to 116 above on the F scale but never for long periods at a time. if I were you I would stick to one of the Polly paints and keep any primer down to as thin as you can. the primer surfacer is normally were you get your failure to start. it's not able to take the contraction with out splitting. but the polyurethanes are like rubber
 
Lead

I have been in the bodyshop business for over 36 years. I have only seen lead done two times. It is a lost art, but there are better ways and materials these days. Since I am in a dealership, we don't see much rust repair and certainly no older cars. I used to do a lot of fabricating on cars with rust. It is time consuming and most people can't afford a real craftsman, so they do the "back alley" thing. If I can't repair it correctly, I won't repair it. At work, I only get paid to do it once. Comebacks don't pay me a dime and somebody has to pay the painter for any bodyman's re-dos. With all the better (lighter) products on the market these days, lead repair will follow the dinosaurs. :(
 
My 1964 and 1965 Imperial LeBarons and Crown Coupes all have lead, about about 150 lbs of it was used on my '64 Ghia-Imperial limousine. Although I've never owned a '66, it was nearly identical to '65 so I expect it has lead too.
 
The '60 Imperial LeBarons had a smaller rear window than the Crown and Custom sedan/Southampton rear windows for that year. The steel frame for this smaller rear window was leaded into the Crown/Custom rear window opening in 1960. These lead joints were problematic and they started bubbling from day 1. Chrysler changed their design after the 1960 model year and used a unique roof stamping for the Lebarons then from 1961 through 1963.
 
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