I have started the body work and on the driver side fender it is covered with some bad surface rust. I have a 50lb sandblaster. Should i use it on the car? II also have some holes about a finger size. What do i use to fill them with? Is it fiberglass? What does fiberglass do?

Don't use the sand blaster or the fiberglass. Sand blasting creates to much heat and will warp the metal. Fiberlass will not last. Use a 36 grit disc to get down to metal and weld patchs in. If you are not able to do this, have it done. You will be fixing the problem over and over if you don't.

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Bret Van Fleet
1966 Malibu 396
1967 El Camino
1999 springer
"Cubic inches means never having to say your sorry "

Live466 is right. If you putty it up, the rust will come back. I speak from experience. I was inexperienced when I did my bodywork almost 8 years ago. Now, there are so many things I would do differently. Be sure to read post from JimmyP and Martinsr on this site. They are 2 very knowledgeable body guys that know what they are talking about. I wish I could have read their posts when I was working on my car. Good luck.

If you are talking about a front fender, I would look into getting a new or rust free used piece. The cost of repairing a badly rusted piece may exceed the cost of a new one.

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Dan Orgill

A sand blaster will create way to much heat for sheetmetal appliciations. How bad is your surface rust, is it deep or just all over? If its not to deep you can rid it by using a DA sander and 36 grit paper. Once you have the rust removed,use 180 grit to remove the 36 grit sctraches.

You need to have all the rust removed, even the smallest amount will come back. The only way to fix rust is to remove it, and when that involves fixing a hole you must cut out the rusted area and weld a new piece in. Just slapping some fiberglass willnt fix your problems, it might last a year or two, but it will come back and when it does, it will be worse.

Being a body man for a living fixing all those rust holes willnt be easy nor cheap, most shops in my area charge 40 to 50 bucks a hour. By the time you get the surface rust removed and a few holes welded shut you surpassed what a nice rust free fender would cost. 300 bucks for a fender from CA might sound high but in the end you will have a much better fender and cheaper...Eric