The Shrinker Finally Arrived

Talk about a slow boat to China. Well, from China to the mainland and then back to Hawaii. It was mid-February when I ordered a metal shrinker and stretcher set from Harbor Freight. To be fair they did quote 4-6 weeks shipping to Hawaii because to hold down the cost it had to go by sea. Sure seems longer than that. Like six months. Time does not always fly.

When the box arrived at home I opened it up and was not pleased by what I found. The inside was full of styrofoam bits. It looked as though mice had moved in. Nuts and washers were rattling around inside because the platic bag of hardware had a big hole in it. I gathered up what I could find and put it in a zip lock. Today at the shop the first thing I did was to take everything out and clean it up.



There was more unhappiness. Lots ot dings and scratches. The paint on the bottom of both tools was worn off as if they had been used. Was this a demo? A return? I was starting to have bad thoughts about Harbor Freight. Then it occured to me that all of the wear could be explained by the condition of the styrofoam packing. These tools are unusually heavy. They traveled thousands of miles rubbing against each other due to inadequate packaging. No wonder they don't look fresh.



There was already a hole in the bench near my car so I bolted down the shrinker and experimented with some scrap. My first attempt was with the same steel I was making patches with. When I pushed down the lever nothing happened. I was worried it was too thick. Great, I'll have to buy thinner stock and start over with the rear window patch. Aluminum was a snap. Then I tried inserting the steel part way, and that worked. I had to push down pretty hard, but it worked.

With that worked out I start to practice on the end of the rear window patch I had previously messed up -- the hammering I had done on the left side resulted in the patch bending the wrong direction. Immediately the end started bending the way I anticipated, but I could not be sure how that would affect the end result. I needed to shrink both edges to get the whole thing to arch the right way, so I flipped the piece around and worked on the opposite side. Sure enough, the piece began to arch, just as I had hoped it would, only way too much.




Now I know why Harbor Freight seemed so intent on selling the shrinker and the stretcher as a set. I mounted the stretcher and experimented undoing some of the shrinking I had done, and it worked perfectly.

Inspired, I went back to the shrinker and went to work on the whole piece. Applying what (little) I had learned, I did not press so hard and I advanced the work a little farther between presses. Even then, when I was done with the second side I had too much curve. I was a also out of time, so I left the stretcher tweaking for next time. Despite overshooting the curve I came away feeling really good about this progress, the first time I had felt that good in a long time.



Last week I expressed my disappointment with POR-15 as a filler for small holes, and with leaky Latex gloves. During the week I checked their web site to see if I needed a different type of glove (nope, they sell Latex) and while looking for the answer I stumbled across this: POR-15 Putty really is a slightly thicker POR-15 paint, in a tube. They also sell a filler, and its description sounds like what I expected putty to be. I don't remember seeing it at Redline Automotive, but I'll check tomorrow.

One thing I did buy during the week was a canister of fiberglass microballons, which are intended to be used in fiberglass construction to build up fairings. I was going to experiment with it as a POR-15 thickening agent today but the arrival of the shrinker kind of took precedence. Besides, it was a wet, rainy day, not the best for paint that sets from moisture in the air.

Last week I tried building up a fill on a larger sized small hole by covering the hole with masking tape and painting from behind. It sort of worked. Well, on the POR-15 web site they describe the same technique, only they suggest putting the tape on the back side. Interesting.

One thing that is killing me is the week-long delay between sessions. So, when the instructions say to wait four hours before applying a second coat, I'm out. Back when I was building radio-controlled sailplanes I used a lot of cyanoacrylate glue. As fast as it was drying, there were times when an extra kick was a real help, and for that I used a spay-on activator. Maybe if I sprayed some water on POR-15 I could create the same effect? I could sure get a lot more done in a day.

Finally, the guy with a nice '76 Corvette was back today in the stall next to mine. His name is Derrick. I took a couple of pictures on his car, just for the heck of it.