Midgetec

I have to admit I was not really ready to tackle the hood bulge.  I started shaping the sheetmetal about 6 weeks ago, and it came out pretty decent, but I was not looking forward to splicing it into the hood...

...

Most of my sheetmetal work gets hidden away behind or underneath things, but now I was going to put it "front and center" for all to see.  It didn't help that I watched some of the Barrett-Jackson auction live from Las Vegas yesterday.  In addition to the normal parade of muscle cars was the occasional custom sprinkled in.

Pretty humbling to see what the pros can do, whether on the creativity side or the amazing craftsmanship.

No matter, today I drug out the plasma cutter and welder, and decided I was going to put something together!

After sanding off the paint from the hood, I marked the outline of the bulge and then drew an offset line about 3/4" inside.  I cut on this line with the plasma, then cleaned it up.  I then sprayed it with blue mark-up fluid and scratched the shape of the bulge piece into it again, and then scribed a radial line every 3/4" around so that I could cut tabs to bend up and be a backer to the edge of the bulge.

In order to get a good weld, I punched them with the handy little punch and bent them up towards the bulge.  I tacked on the bulge on the top side, then proceeded to weld all the spots on the tabs on the underneath.  Next I stitch welded on the top side to seal it up.

After cleaning up the welds with the grinder, it was time for some filler.  Not only did I have to cover up the joint, but I had to do a little work on the bulge itself, since the shrinking hammer left some pretty good sized impressions in it, and also since it was not perfectly symmetric.

By 5 PM, I had enough, and called it quits.  I've still got another hour or two of sanding and touch-up, but I think it's going to be OK.

Looks like I'm on schedule to make it to the Euro Auto Fest in a few weeks.  It'll be far from finished, but I'm coming down the home stretch now!