Custom cowl hood fabrication

A+ craftsmanship and fabrication skills. Ihave toask was this all self taught or did you attend a technical or trade school? I'm envious of the level of skill you have and it makes me want to fine tune and hone my skills.

@chevymalibu283

Hey man, thanks for the positive comments, it truly means a lot. Thank you.
You're not likely to believe this, but I am mostly self taught. I'll try and spare you all the long sordid details, and just kinda give you the cliffnotes version, but no promises. Lol

I never really took an interest in cars or automotives until I got my first car shortly before the end of my last year of high school. As a result, I never took a single automotives or autobody class in school. Being a young, broke teenager living at home, if I needed or wanted anything fixed or changed, I had to figure out how to do it myself as I couldn't afford to pay anyone to do it for me.

Growing up, my dad was never into cars or hotrods, he was more interested in hunting and fishing. Same with the group of friends I hung with at the time. As things broke on my first car, I had to learn the hard way what they were and how they worked to know how to fix them. From there, I kinda became an information junkie on anything to do with cars and engines. Any info I could find I devoured, from Haynes manuals to hotrod mags. Then one night, at the local hotrod hangout, I witnessed a couple of bad *ss muscle cars squaring off in a quarter mile drag race. From then on, I was hooked. I knew I HAD to be one of "those" guys.

At home, my dad had a 110 volt welder that he had bought and seldom used, so I decided one night I was going to teach myself how to weld. Problem was, it was on the hardest possible thing there is to weld - sheetmetal. Long story short, after several extremely warped panels, I learned I was out of my league. From there, I took a continuing education course in autobody at night, and learned the proper way to weld and perform basic autobody techniques. As it would turn out, I was actually pretty good at it. I understood what the metal was doing and why, and what needed to be done to fix it. So I decided to pursue it as a career.

After putting in 2 long years in the wash bay at a local dealership, they finally agreed to take me on as an autobody apprentice. Now before you go "oh yeah, that explains it", I only made it thru my second year before I was laid off and had to pursue a different career altogether. They didn't teach me much beyond what I had already learned. Most of what I've learned has come the hard, old fashioned way of trial and error and just getting in there and trying something.

I think I was around 22 when I struck my first arc in the garage that night, and I'll be 42 this Sunday. That's 20 years of continual learning and LOTS of mistakes. I don't claim to know it all, I'm still learning too, but I find the more I continue to challenge myself, the more I find I can't do.

I really am honoured at the fact you like my work enough to comment and ask questions, but please, don't be envious, just get out there and jump into it with all you've got. Better yet, if you have access to trade schools, technical training or whatever, USE IT! You can bypass all the lessons I've had to learn the hard way, and be better than I am way quicker. Listen to the old guys and those that have been there and done that. Their experience is priceless, especially if they're willing to pass it on to you.

Hope this was of some use to you, and good luck. Feel free to stay in touch and share your progress. It's always nice to meet new car enthusiasts and make new friends.

Donovan